Found on Threadless

Sandra of I May Be Knitting a Ranchhouse is coveting this as a hoodie, and I don't know how I missed it in the Threadless newsletter, but, well, now I'm coveting it too. I may be a follower, but so are sheep, and I like sheep, so its ok.

This one is also quite fun (and new too!):


This is one that I might consider picking up for a sock knitting pal:


I know another sock knitter who this would be great for (but not because she knits socks):


And this shirt is pretty much showing the reason that I don't play Scrabble anymore:

Its not that I hate getting shitty tiles, its that I cheat when I get crappy tiles towards the end of the game, and that just isn't a good way to play the game.

This is one that I should get for myself:


Mr. Peoples probably said this more than once in school, but he is super with the camera. Maybe this is the shirt for him:


That is all the Threadless fun I will torture you with today.

You should know about this guy

My friend Charlie told me about this guy, Mike Gravel, former senator from Alaska, who is quite the man to listen to speak. He seems to actually be speaking clearly and logically about the issues of the war and defense spending in this video, and now I'm off to read more about his other views at his website.

Wool into yarn, industrial style

P1000068
Originally uploaded by Trapped Manufacturer.

This flickr! member is apparently a carpet maker in China, and he has some very neat pictures of wool turning into carpets. I love seeing how the industrial process works to make stuff, especially things that I also can make at home on a much smaller scale.

He has a few good "red yarn" pictures.

Dangerous Water

Dangerous Water
Originally uploaded by pominoz68.

The best part of this photo (besides the fact that multiple people were probably involved in making/approving this sign and it still got installed) is the comments, so click through to read them.

Knitting Meme

I got this from Erin at My Best Friend's a Dork who got it from Molly Knits Sweaters.

Here are the instructions:
Mark with bold the things you have ever knit, with italics the ones you plan to do sometime, and leave the rest.

I am adding: Strikethrough the things that you don't see yourself ever doing again/more than once/you actively think are a bad idea. If you started, but did not finish an object, bold it but then put * next to it

Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl*
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk (blend)
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns (mosaic knitting? or am I missing something and I've done it?)
Knitting with bananafiber yarn
Domino knitting (modular knitting)*
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Baby items
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffitti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments (do socks count?)
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colours
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cosies...)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items)on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone elses handspun yarn
Knitting with dpns
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art (knitting as art or knitted replicas *of* art? I would totally knit a replica of art, but not as art)
Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars simultaneously
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO (if you'll start my socks, I'll be happy to graft your toes)
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with selfpatterning/selfstriping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/armwarmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting*
Knitting a gift
Knitting clothing for pets
Knitting toys/accessories for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public (there are people who don't do this? the mind boggles)

Copenhagen 128

Copenhagen 128
Originally uploaded by tdgirl.

I just wanted to show this one. In the thumbnail, I thought it was a bowl or plate from a meal or shop or something. I clicked to see what it was, and it is the staircase of an office building that we wandered into because we thought it was a bank. It was not, but it had this cool staircase or balcony (hard to tell from the ground floor)

Found On flickr!

Vital Clean Parasit
Originally uploaded by Andrew Huff.

What is this? Who buys a product with pictures of parasites on the label? Well, anyway, thanks to Andrew for taking a picture of it.

I love the silly useful-ness of this product

Fling - ONELESSBAG canvas bag: Its a standard canvas tote bag with a picture of a blue plastic bag screen printed on it. The intention is to use it instead of plastic bags, and considering the mountain of plastic bags in my house, and how bad they are for the environment, I think that this spring, I will be trying to switch to reusable bags. I used to use them all the time at Trader Joe's in CT, but have somehow strayed from the strategy.

Double Geek shirts

Afrayed Knot on Cafe Press has some good shirts, on dark colors, with amusing phrases, (especially if you are a computer geek as well as a knitting geek...you know who you are) and you should go and buy a shirt or two. $5 from every purchase goes to Doctors Without Borders as a part of Knitters Without Borders, so you win on so many levels.

Does anyone know how the cafe press shirts fit and hold up? I've never actually bought anything from there, and I'd like to know.

Found on flickr!

Turkish #1
Originally uploaded by yecatsml.

Noricum found this on flickr! and as I just received my copy of Anatolian Knitting Designs from Schoolhouse Press, it really struck me in its amazingness.

In other news, I am back stateside, the exhaustion from travel is just hitting me this afternoon, and posts from Denmark will be forthcoming. And Happy Easter to those of you who find it to be a holiday!

Just call me Captain Cook!

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Adventurer. You are through those knitting growing pains and feeling more adventurous. You can follow a standard pattern if it's not too complicated and know where to go to get help. Maybe you've started to experiment with different fibers and you might be eyeing a book with a cool technique you've never tried. Perhaps you prefer to stick to other people's patterns but you are trying to challenge yourself more. Regardless of your preference, you are continually trying to grow as a knitter, and as well you should since your non-knitting friends are probably dropping some serious hints, these days.http://marniemaclean.com Take this quiz!

Successfully Social

This weekend, I was, in an out-of-character manner, very social. As I thought about it, I haven't really made any attempt at socialization, outside of family and visiting with Nicole in Michigan, since Steph died in July, and I think that spring in the air is helping to really push me out of my apartment.

So what did I do this weekend? Here is a list of sorts:

Friday night, I went to Loopy Yarns for the knitting night, and I actually sat with other people and made conversation. It only took an hour or two for me to sit at the table with other people.

Saturday, Jennifer came over to help finish my mom's felted bag, intended for her birthday 2005 and abandoned due to finishing roadblocks circa August 2005. Please note, it is currently March 2007. Anne also came by for a little while to look through (and buy) some of Piddleloop's headbands. She got one as a gift and two for herself. Then, her boyfriend Nat came over and we all went to Thai Pastry for dinner. It was fun, big thanks to Jennifer for finishing mom's bag, now all I have to deal with is the yarn ends from sewing up. I think that I will needle felt them into the bag itself, rather than tie knots.

Oh, but wait, I continued on with interacting with other people (normally, this would have been my limit for a weekend). I went to Justin's St. Patrick's day gathering for the "bar-weary" and met some of his friends and had a few beers and generally enjoyed myself without being a wallflower. The theorem that the world is small was proven once again when Justin's friend Helen turned out to be Lavina's friend Helen from Cherubs. And Helen is super. I like her a lot, as well as Katie and Courtney. Its always good to meet new people. At least, I keep telling myself that. =)

Today, Sunday, I was social from approximately 3:30pm to 11:00pm. That would be 7.5 hours for those of you keeping track at home. First, there was the Demons and Darlings Stitch'n'Bitch at the Urban Tea Lounge on Montrose. It was lots of fun, and I got to meet interesting people and get going on the second sock of the pair I am working on, in the hopes of having two matching socks at the end by working on both at the same time. Also, UTL had good food and beverages, including regular Coke in a can for those of us who prefer our caffeine to be cold, sweet, and fizzy instead of warm, adjustably sweet and creamy, and flat. I had the hummus plate, a coke (obviously) and a pint of Ceylon tea. Lisa and I left there around 7:30 to go and meet her friends Roger and Robert for dinner up in Edgewater.

First, we met up at Roger's, a place I had never been, to wait for Robert and drop off our knitting bags before hauling them to a restaurant for dinner. While there, I got to meet a sweet, attention-loving cat named Nicky (sp?), Roger gave me a book that he is the publisher of (I started reading it while waiting for the train home) and the Firefly TV Series DVD set to borrow and watch. Hopefully, watching it will make the Jayne hat craze comprehensible. Once Robert arrived, and I was able to greet him with, "So, I hear you are a four ball man." (in reference to the number of balls of yarn required to knit him socks, not his reproductive anatomy, silly), we headed off to The Little Mexican Cafe for dinner. I had the mahi mahi special and it was good, but I was hungrier than just that and chips and salsa, so I may still have a bowl of cereal tonight.

After dinner, we returned to Roger's place (around the corner) to retrieve the knitting bag (for me) and to fit Robert's sock that Lisa is knitting, and then we ended up just hanging around and talking about eBay business for a while before I noticed how late it was in relation to my alarm clock settings. So now I am home, finally getting sleepy, and telling you all about how social I was.

Here is the breakdown, by time:

Friday 5pm - Sunday midnight: 55 hours
Social time:

1. Friday knitting at Loopy: 6-10pm = 4 hours
2. Saturday with Jennifer, Anne and Nat: 3pm-8pm = 5 hours
3. Saturday at Justin's: 9pm-12midnight = 3 hours
4. Sunday at DnDSnB: 3:30pm-7:30pm = 4 hours
5. Sunday dinner etc: 7:30pm-11:30pm = 4 hours

Total Social Time: 20 hours

That is an incredible ratio of social time to awake time, if you figure that I slept for 9 hours minimum for each of two night of sleeping. I suspect that I will not want to talk to anyone in the morning at work. I think that I may be looking forward to the laundromat and my knitting tomorrow night.

LTPD - To Knit, Perchance to Dream

That I would ever have the attention span to knit these socks. I think that the enchantment of a growing pattern, coupled with the excuse to buy a fun black knee-length skirt, and using either the called-for Regia Silk or Knitpicks Gloss yarn, would make it a Finished Object before too long. And the wonderful thing about sock knitting is that even for tall knee socks, using super-luxe yarn, the price is $35 for the Regia or $16 for the Gloss. Think about the monetary investment in sweaters, and the comparison with socks (and they have about the same number of stitches) and you will see why people like to knit socks.
Knitty: Spring 2007 - Clessidra Stockings

Confidential to the Inconsistent Mixer: Tab-Enter does not post a blog entry in Blogger, even though it sends an email in Gmail. Quit Trying.

Party Favors for a Knitting Party

I think that if I ever have an order to place from The Loopy Ewe for more than just these, I will order a bunch of these keychains and either give them as small stocking-stuffer gifts or knit the socks and give the whole thing to a knitter. I think they would also make a good IOU for gift socks that haven't been finished in time.

Keychain Sock Blocker Sock ~ The Loopy Ewe

not dead

nope, not dead. Still alive and kicking. And knitting. Just saying hi.

Cheaper than the Gap!

If you like to knit socks, or use sock yarn, or wish to encourage others to knit you socks, go check out the Little Knits sock yarn sale. You can get enough sock yarn to make a pair of superwash wool socks with a clever little pattern for less than $7. Can't beat that with a stick.

I have a bunch of sock yarn, but I'm still thinking of ordering some of the more "manly" color schemes for Dad and Uncle socks for Christmas time and future knitting.

Just figured that I'd put this PSA out there for any knitters that happen on by.

I don't get it

I frequently peruse the job listings on Craigslist. There are many jobs that list "Blueprint reading a plus" or "must be able to read blueprints". These are not jobs for nursing or phone answering (where the skill is not necessary, obviously), but instead, they are jobs for working on a construction site or as an estimator or a project manager. Who can't read a blueprint and still has any idea what they are making? A blueprint is a picture, to scale, with some ridiculously obvious and logical conventions, and perhaps some notes, of the thing you are trying to make.

Did you see that phrase? the thing you are trying to make. How would you even think that you could do that job if you couldn't read a drawing? And if you can read (really, that's a necessary job for pretty much every job, and how did you get to a CraigsList posting without that very basic skill?) and figure out how to make the thing, and use a measuring device, how could you not be able to read a blueprint?

I understand that sometimes you have crappy drawings to work with, or they don't all match up, and there is some skill in analyzing a drawing, but I don't really see how this is even something you would put in a job listing or on your resume. I don't write "can do math through pre-calculus" or "mastered high school algebra" on my resume, nor do I add "successfully uses a scale rule on a daily basis" or "familiar with Cartesian plane geometry". That is assumed. Kind of like how you figure that I can read and write to the level that is demonstrated with my resume and cover letter.

For those of you out there in the construction field, or who write such ads, what's up with even mentioning blueprint reading?

Well, that's common sense

If you feed a 2yo lunch later than usual, she won't want to eat because it is time for her nap and she is sleepy. So she'll just eat the banana and some of the hotdogs, and then be done. I barely got her into her bed before she was asleep. Oh, but she is darn cute.

When I'm feeling blue

This is my favorite flickr! search these days just for general happiness.

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A small list, instead of ellipses: (warning to the boys, I was observing stuff in the drugstore while waiting for a prescription last night)

• What are "Sport" tampons and why does anyone need them? Do they wick the sweat out of your hoohah? Are they more aerodynamic? Can you jump higher and run faster?
  
• How did the product testing work to end up with "mistable" personal lubricant?
• Who cares if something is manly or not if you like it?
  
• What would happen if you use the Anti-Poof Shampoo and Conditioner and the Anti-Flat styling creme? Would it be like you did nothing at all?
• If I don't knit socks (see: too loose of gauge for everything) why am I so drawn to sock yarn?
• Does Meg Swansen have an unmarried son or grandson or nephew? I want to be related to that family. (can you tell I've been re-reading EZ books this weekend?)
  

All in one Clearance Sale

I'm not as cool as Sarah Louise, so I didn't tweak the text at all, but look, my brain is blue! I like the color blue.

Your Brain is Blue

Of all the brain types, yours is the most mellow. You tend to be in a meditative state most of the time. You don't try to think away your troubles. Your thoughts are realistic, fresh, and honest. You truly see things as how they are. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about your friends, your surroundings, and your life.

What Color Is Your Brain?

You Are a Mac

You are creative, stylish, and super trendy. You demand the best - even if it costs an arm and a leg.

Are You a Mac or a PC?

You've Changed 48% in 10 Years

You've done a good job changing with the times, but deep down, you're still the same person. You're clothes, job, and friends may have changed some - but it hasn't changed you.

How Much Have You Changed in 10 Years?

You Communicate With Your Body

This isn't as bad as it sounds, it just means that you're a "touchy-feely" person. You need a lot of affection in your life. And for you, this means both giving and receiving little touches. Warm hearted, you bond with people easily. In fact, you often feel a little sad when you're not in the company of others. A little moody, you tend to be controlled by your emotions. But a bit hug always comforts you!

How Do You Communicate?

You Are 37% Sexy

Your Sex Appeal Is: Average You're about as sexy as the average person on the street. There's no secret to gaining more sex appeal - you just need to be a bit bolder!

How Much Sex Appeal Do You Have?

You Don't Hold a Grudge

You're willing to give almost anyone a second chance, even if they've really wronged you. Incredibly forgiving and compassionate, you understand that people sometimes change for the better.

Do You Hold a Grudge?

You Are Indigo

Of all the shades of blue, you are the most funky, unique, and independent. Expressing yourself and taking a leap of faith has always been easy for you.

What Color Blue Are You?

Your 1996 Theme Song Is: Ironic by Alanis Morisette

It's like rain on your wedding day It's a free ride when you've already paid It's the good advice that you just didn't take Who would've thought ... it figures

What's Your 1996 Theme Song?

Your Movie Buff Quotient: 48%

You are well on your way to becoming a movie buff. You've seen many of the great films, and you have even probably developed an expertise in a few genres.

Are You a Movie Buff?

Your Preppy Name Is...

Stockton Danforth Corcoran the Third But most people know you as Babs

What's Your Preppy Name?

Blog tool as post

Muppet Heads

I wrote this article for the Windy City Knitting Guild newsletter and figured that I may as well put it up here too.

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At Childrens’ Hospital Boston, which treats kids from all over the world, there is a ward of 10-16 year olds who are undergoing radiation and chemo for cancer who need hats. We’ve all heard about people needing chemo caps before, but this is different. These kids don’t just want hats. They want fun fur. Yes, FUN FUR hats. All of them, girls, boys, teens, pre-teens, want fun fur hats, to wear as their fake “hair”.

A knitter in Boston is organizing a drive for fun fur hats for these kids. The hats are due to her by February 28, 2007, and there will be prizes donated from all over (yarn, stitch markers, more yarn) to people who send in hats. The response has been overwhelming, and I myself have decided to knit at least 10 of these hats. (I bought 10 balls, and they had better not be in my house on March 1!) For more information, go to:
http://minisoup.blogspot.com/2007/01/contest-and-childrens-hospital.html

The kids also like beanie-type hats, as long as they are very soft, since everyday isn’t a Muppet day. If you want to join in the fun, but don’t want to knit with fun fur, you are still welcome.

At the February Guild meeting, I will collect any hats that you have knit and would like me to send with my own. You can also go to the Minestrone Soup blog and get the details to send in your own fun fur hats. Mini will send you some hat patterns, and her mailing address. Having read through the patterns, to figure out the basics for this yarn, here is what I am doing:

Materials: 1 ball of fun fur-type yarn
Needles: Size 9, 16” circular needle
NOTE: I am a very loose knitter, most patterns (and the ball bands) call for a US 10.5 needle or larger. Use your best judgment.
Notions/Tools: darning needle, stitch marker
Gauge: I have no idea, there is no way to measure it with the fun fur, but my hats fit my head.

The pattern:
Cast on 60 stitches loosely. Join in the round, being careful not to twist. Place marker to locate the beginning of the round. Knit around, in stockinette, for 6½”. Your knitting will not curl at the bottom due to the weight of the “fur”.

When you have knit for 6½”, decrease to your liking or as follows:
Row 1: *Knit 8, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times
Row 2: knit around
Row 3: *knit 7, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times
Row 4: knit around
Row 5: *knit 6, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times.
Row 6: knit around
Row 7: *knit 5, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times.
Row 8: knit around
Row 9: *knit 4, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times.
Row 10: knit around
Row 11: *knit 3, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times.
Row 12: *knit 2, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times.
Row 13: *knit 1, k2tog*, repeat from * to * 6 times.
Row 14: k2tog around
Cut yarn, use darning needle to run yarn tail through all stitches twice.
Weave in both ends on the inside.

Celebrity Writings

I emailed Schoolhouse Press about some books yesterday. Today, Meg Swansen, the Meg Swansen, emailed me back. She was nice, informative, and so normal. It makes me want to call and have her answer the phone, like she did for Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

How green is your school?

How green is your school? Here is how mine stack up: (warning, grades link to PDF documents)

Fall 1998-Spring 1999: University of Minnesota, B-
Fall 2000-Spring 2003, Fall 2004: Carnegie Mellon University, C+
Fall 2003-Spring 2004: Yale University, B+

The word university in each line links to the main school page, the name of the school links to the program/department that I was in. The grades are how the schools' endowments do on environmental sustainability issues, not what my GPA was.

cross

You have reached The Inconsistent Mixer. She is unavailable to come to the blog today due to an inability to behave like a grownup. All of her reactions to the world around her resemble a those of an ill-behaved toddler, and therefor, her blogging privileges have been revoked, along with knitting with wool. Until this grumpy mood passes, the Inconsistent Mixer is only allowed to knit fun fur hats for teens with cancer, to remind her that there are many people in the world way worse off than she is.

When her behavior is better, Ms. Mixer will be bringing you posts about her SP9 reveal package, Playing Dress-Up with Public Art and a re-publish of an article she wrote for the Windy City Knitting Guild newsletter.

Until then, please leave a message at the sound of the tone. Press 1 for more options.


Beep!

Go read this

Ms. blackbird has posted something bizarre, yet entertaining, and you must go read it:
say la vee: another Schott
That is all.

Just an update

Archer Farms Salt & Pepper potato chips are good, even though they leave your mouth with that pepper-y feeling. Maybe they should be called Pepper & Salt chips. Try adding Canfield's Seltzer Water for extra mouth zing!

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I love my blue basketweave sweater from Eddie Bauer, and I would link to it or show you a picture, except that it appears to be gone from both the main website and the outlet website. Last week, they were down to only having them in cream size medium, which is not my size, otherwise I would have bought a second one. There is just one problem, it seems to shed and pill an awful lot. I hope that I am imagining it, but it seems that the underarms may even be developing holes at the seam, from fiber loss. I wore it over a white shirt today and discovered that I can't take it off because I am now wearing a white and blue fuzz shirt. I think that when it dies, I might have to use this sweater as a template for knitting myself a new, sturdier one. This sweater is 60% cotton, 20% wool, 10% nylon and 10% angora rabbit, so that is a majority of the component fibers as short-stapled, prone to pill and shed, fibers. I don't think its a very wise decision. But I bet that if I put my mind and needles to it, I can make an even better sweater (this one is just the right fit and proportion for my slouchy preferences) with something in a sturdy wool. I'm not certain that I have the patience to knit an entire sweater in what appears to be 14 sts/inch basketweave, but I will probably be able to figure something out. First, of course, I should finish some other projects. Like my fun fur hats and mom's hat and my fair isle sampler sweater.

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I am 11 pages from the end of Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping and I'm considering not finishing. I have no idea what the point of the book is, who the narrator is (or maybe there is more than one?) or why I should care. I mean, I think that the main narrator and voice of the story is the orphan girl Silver, but I'm not sure. Also, the pages are not laid out like regular pages. There is a lot of white space for a novel. This book might be over my head.

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Sarah Louise sent me a book of Psalms on Friday and it showed up today! How's that for speedy postal service. We must have a site visit going on at the 60640 post office or something. Its a fairly modern translation and I look forward to giving it a try. Also, a book of the Bible in book format is much less daunting than the freaking gigantic things I checked out of the library.

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Continental fixed my flights for the birthday trip to Denmark. So we won't be flying from Chicago to Newark, NJ by heading southwest, or Newark to Copenhagen via Antarctica and Finland. It was very prompt of them and even Lacey looked into it for me, as it was clearly a ridiculous (and possibly funny) database error.

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I had to wait at the Field Museum today in the main hall while my boss and other assorted co-workers had a meeting in the depths of the offices. (they left for the meeting while I was still measuring a room... leaving a note that they would be back to get me... and there is no way to find where they were without a guide.) While I waited, I had a lovely conversation with an old lady who worked as a guide-type person for the Sue dinosaur. We talked about interesting things on the internet, and I told her that digital cameras were really easy, even though they were much less so five years ago, so she should make the switch. We also talked about how Frango mints have changed and expanded their range in recent years. Of course, she also told me all about Sue, and explained the weird sticking out bone underneath the tail.

**************************************

Speaking of work, there is a creature living in the ceiling and maybe the wall of my office in the blockhouse. We have rats, and two cats that are living in the building, both species of which are feral and decidedly un-pet-like. Over the weekend, one type of animal or the other fell through the acoustical tile (it shifted, the animal fell) in the women's bathroom in the blockhouse. I am terrified that the creature (which will probably turn out to be an angry 15# rat) is going to fall through the ceiling in the middle of the day, when I am sitting right there, probably on the phone, and it will be followed by an army of creepy crawlies.

Ick.

I hope that Scot figures out how to get it out tomorrow. The main trouble is that above the acoustical tile, the floor of the second level (storage) is 1/4" plate steel. So whatever is in there is pretty much stuck at this point, and we can't get to it. Ewwww.

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We are finally having seasonable weather here. I should learn not to leave fizzy, canned beverages in my car trunk, in Chicago, during seasonable January weather. At least the ice doesn't get everything wet.

The Bears helmets for the Art Institute lions look really great in the shop. I hope that they look even better on the lion-backers.

Thanks for reading down this far. Sorry that there are no links or pictures, but I'm just not up for it today.

Found on Flickr!

breakfast beret
Originally uploaded by yi.

Someone has knit a breakfast beret, which, while it isn't what I would want to eat for breakfast, sure makes a neat hat.

Schedule Change Notification

I got this email about half an hour ago from Continental Airlines. I sure hope that its a database error and not an actual flight plan.

Guess I'll have to pack some snacks!

The Six Weird Things meme

Everyone is doing it, so here I am, jumping on the bandwagon way late in the game.

6 Weird Quirky Things About Me:

1. I really like plain seltzer water. Not club soda or tonic water or flavored seltzer. Just the plain stuff. I also really like Coke. But there are no calories and no weird "diet" taste in plain seltzer.
2. I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime. Sleeping is not a problem for me, though sometimes I sleep too much.
3. I won't eat mushrooms, onions or olives. At all. Under any circumstances. You don't need to not cook with them, though I would prefer it, I'll just eat around them if its integral to the dish. The only exception to this is a risotto that a boyfriend made where the onion was the exact same size, shape and texture as the rice, so I couldn't even discern the difference. I ate that dish up happily, even though I saw him put in the onion.
   
4. My pajamas rarely match. The only day that they are guaranteed to match is Christmas Eve/Day because my mom always gets my sister and I new pjs to open on Xmas Eve.
5. I have TiVo but no cable or satellite tv.
6. I read anything and everything that I can see.

I'm not tagging anyone, but you are free to consider yourself as-such if it makes you feel better.

Dad's Christmas Dog Walking Hat

Inner Hem Detail
Originally uploaded by tdgirl.

In November, I asked my dad what he wanted for Christmas, and he said that he wanted a warm hat for walking the dog, because Earl (his fur hat of the classic Russian variety) was not doing very well, and was definitely showing his age. *

During our Skype conversation, I grilled him about his hat preferences, to establish that wool was ok, patterns were ok but only if they were masculine, he wanted the brim to fold up and that a hemmed, folding brim would be even better, blue, red and black were acceptable colors, stripes were not preferred, but if I need to, I could use them, he wanted a pompom.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, we went to the yarn store in Excelsior to find yarn that was the right colors for him, soft enough, in a weight that I wanted to use, and all of those other intangible qualities of yarn. I learned that he doesn't like the handpainted yarn. And with the Malabrigo that I kept offering, he said, "That seems too soft to be a hat." and "That is very pretty yarn, but I wouldn't want to wear it on my head." The blue and white yarns are Cascade 220 (blue is a Heathers color) while the red is Berrocco Ultra Alpaca. I chose the red as the brim color because it was the softest. Also, I didn't want to take any chances with combining different yarns in the main body of stranding.

I actually started knitting this hat the week before Christmas, and it was washed and blocking on the morning of December 24th. the most difficult part was all that stockinette to knit the brim in both directions and the most fun was knitting the message into the hem. There are some caught floats showing through in the blue background of the snowflake, but I don't know how to prevent those. If I knit that chart again, I would use a Norwegian lice pattern instead of trying to put in the sorta-snowflakes. Look how even my stranding was for the X pattern!

*Apparently, long ago, there was a product marketed as "Earl the Dead Cat" or somesuch thing. My mom, at the store, when my dad bought this hat, said that it looked like he had a dead animal on his head, and the conversation led to the furry product from the 70s. And until this year, I thought that it was Irrel the Dead Cat, as a play on the word Squirrel.

Forest of studwalls

Forest of studwalls
Originally uploaded by tdgirl.

This image is my current desktop wallpaper at work. Taken of real scenery in process of being built. There was no further cropping after I uploaded the picture from the camera.

Halved!

I tend to compulsively save email addresses in my GMail contact list. It has clearly gotten out of control, so I just went through and deleted all of the addresses that fit any of the following criteria:

• Anonymous Craigslist address from answering an ad
• Old CMU address for someone that I know hasn't been affiliated with the school for quite some time
• Entries with nothing that clues me in to why I would know this person or ever need the address again

With just those three criteria, I deleted 288 entries with 289 remaining. Some of the remaining entries are questionable, but I didn't want to accidentally delete something that I would need again in the future.

Resumes

I've been with my current employer for almost 2 years now, and this is my first real job out of college. The last time I did a resume was when I was finishing school, with the intention of finding the job that I have now. The most current resume that I have is dated October 2004, but it was written to be current as of January 2005. Somehow, I think that I will fall behind in my resume skills, as well as how it fits in to have real, working experience on your C.V., if I don't update soon.

I am looking for *your* resume, primarily for arrangement and language and which sections you put in, to figure out what works best for *my* resume. I don't really care what your industry is, or how old the resume actually is, I just want lots of bits of inspiration. I accept almost all formats, and I'm pretty sure all of the ones that a person sends a resume in, and there is an email link in my blogger profile, or leave a comment here.

Has anyone ever applied for a job online? They frequently have boxes that you are supposed to fill in, (like sections in a resume) and I suspect that there is a trick to them. If you know what it is, let me know. How are you supposed to format it? Do you just use list-format words, or full sentences? I can't apply to work at Google if I don't know the trick to the form.

In two years of working in a real office, as the smallest fish in a big lake, I have learned things about my work habits and preferences that are not necessarily positive, but will have a bearing on whether I would be any good at a job, or if I would like it. The one that is safest to mention on the internet is that I am a lousy negotiator. It could be the best job in the world otherwise, but as soon as they put "strong negotiation skills needed" into the description, I'm out of there like a fat girl in dodgeball. I can stand firm in my position, and I can see your side of things, but I don't really have an inclination to negotiate. I do poorly shopping in third-world markets. How do you deal with that both in the search and the interview?

This may return to the drafts pile in a couple of days, depending on my confidence. I am mostly motivated by the fact that the most recent item on my old resume (a relative asked me to send it to them) is The Duchess of Malfi, which was my Senior TD crew assignment at CMU. Just a bit out of date. But it did have a neat staircase, a super-butch cantilevered platform, and a clever pneumatic fire curtain avoidance trick rig. Still, not exactly the most recent project that I've worked on.

Found on Flickr!

The Colour Wheel according to Wollmeise
Originally uploaded by fanelendil.

I want all this yarn. I want to knit with it, and weave flowers with it, and show it off and keep it in my stash. Mine mine mine! but not at all.

For Sarah Louise

Gold medal rose
Originally uploaded by JojoDee.

She deserves a gold medal and flowers, and here it is all in one.

How have I never heard of this guy?

Beth posted here, a link to Keith Olbermann's response to the President's most recent speech about Iraq and the "new strategy". Go check it out here. I'll try to find a YouTube version to embed, but I want to get this out of the draft pile.

The Muggles have heard!

Freakonomics Blog » Bank Cracks Down on Wily Yarn Merchant
This story is actually true.

some other links from within the land of yarn:
Freakin' Muggles
Blue Moon Fiber Arts
Buy a Sock Club membership... if you got a code in time! (if you want to share it with me, I have a code that I'm not planning on using due to my thinking that $210 is a lot of money to spend on yarn and patterns that will further prove my inability to get sock gauge )

Up for a swap?

sock yarn (1)
Originally uploaded by tdgirl.

These sock yarns are from Lorna's Laces, and I am posting the photo here to show someone that I am trying to swap for 22 balls of Wool of the Andes. I also have some CTH yarn that is on my Flickr! photostream as well.

quick and lame

But in my continued google fangirlness, I have registered a domain for the sole purpose of setting up a website using Google apps for your domain.

I am planning a knitting roundup post in the very near future (probably this weekend), and in the mean time, a short ellipses:

beer after knitting guild is a very good idea... we "go live" with the new rental software tomorrow... Mrs. TANBI has a new, full-time gig, yay for her!... its finally seasonal weather here in Chicago... The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is top notch, well, at least as much as I've read (350 of 487 pages)... I think that I should get the starter in my car replaced... how does one become a software developer??? I think that with all of my strong opinions about user interface and human-computer interaction, I need to learn how to fix the problems myself... which is why, in the end, I don't like being a manager very much... Rose Brand East is moving to NJ, no phone or email on Friday... definitely need to go grocery shopping tomorrow... Natalie leaves for Denmark on Saturday

BlogThis!

The BlogThis! extension is Firefox doesn't function when using the new Blogger beta. Has anyone found a replacement dealiebob for quick blog posts? Or do you just switch back to IE or write the post from scratch? I am actually finding that the new IE7 is pretty nice to use, but maybe I need to change something in my Firefox. I hear that there is a new version that I'm sure I haven't switched to.

Also, did anyone else have a total MS Outlook meltdown yesterday morning (Thursday)? And then did you go and download and install what seemed like 10 MS Updates and then it all worked again? Or was it just at my company? You know what was the best part about it? I had my computer fixed before the IT guy could even figure out what was happening. He is a useless, salary-drawing lump as far as I can tell.

A 2007 Horoscope

I just followed a link in a post of Sarah Louise's to Paula's blog, who has a sidebar link to Crazy Aunt Purl, who I have only read occasionally, but now have added to my Google Reader feeds, and this, here, is something that I wanted to share:

***************************************************************
ARIES (March 21- April 19)
No one has ever accused an Aries of being too Pisces, too unable to take a stand or have an opinion or make up a big ol' Aries mind. No one ever confuses Aries with Cancer, always dreaming of the future or the past and never fully present. Aries can make decisions quickly, right now! In the moment! But Aries has a bit of an impulse-control issue, too, so in 2007 your To-Don't is clear: Don't live entirely based on your impulses. Use your big Aries brain and your equally big heart to balance out your decisions. Acting on impulse may be fine at the grocery store or the shoe store, but it gets harder to justify "I just wanted to!" with family and friends and work. Your To-Do for 2007 is a good one, though: Do spend more time indulging your snooty, refined, prissy self. Aries make excellent foodies, and great wine lovers, and fabulous art critics. Aries folks can enjoy the finer parts of life like nobody's business. Make it your business!
***************************************************************

The bit above is about me. Go here to get your own horoscope To Dos and To Don'ts for 2007.

This one is for my mother

It is National De-Lurking Week. That means that its time to comment. Just drop in, say hello, let me know you are out there.

And go read the Yarn Harlot's post today about how a bank is not taking money because it doesn't believe that the Rockin' Socks Club is real. Its unbelievable.

The Onion does it again

800,000 Privileged Youths Enlist To Fight In Iraq

I can't decide how I feel about this article. While it is right on the money about who is bearing the brunt of the war in Iraq, and there is nothing so easy to make fun of as upper-middle and upper-class young adults, I can't decide if its actually funny, or just sad in its truth (or lack thereof).

Go read it and then come back here and let me know what your take on it is.

So Bush is talking on the teevee tomorrow night...

And given my track record of never managing to watch the entirety of a 43 television broadcast, and the fact that I can't listen for more than about 5 minutes without having to walk away in anger/frustration/flabbergastion (yes, I know that isn't a word), a sign I saw today seemed like the perfect solution.

The Lutheran church down the street is having a Prayers for Peace service tomorrow night at 7pm. That won't make me angry, and will probably be good for my heart, mind and soul. The speech is not going to be about bringing peace, but about how we can dig in our heels for a war that was unjust and poorly planned from the get-go. Hopefully, the prayer service will be about bringing peace and reconciliation to all of the people in the world. If anyone in the Chicagoland area would like to join me, its the big church just west of Ashland on Foster.

Something to remember, folks:

Its all one God. The same God. Whatever your preferred version of worship and belief is, there is one unified God that listens to all prayers equally. Even if your faith has multiple gods, those gods are each individual aspects of the one God. So please, can we stop fighting about this? That is my plea to everyone. Pass it on. No more fighting about other things under the pretense of fighting over different versions of God. Fight over pollution or poverty or inequality or the color of the sky. But don't even think about bringing religion into it.

things that I have been unable to find in the last week...

Still Missing:
-One (1) package of powdered/flake mashed potatos... I think that I last saw them in a bag near my books or the knitting stuff... or maybe in my bedroom... or did I eat them?
-Both of my Down the Line CDs... might be buried on my desk, but definitely not in any of my CD books, my disc drive, the car stereo or Joanne's boom box.
-one (1) ball of Lorna's Laces Angel yarn... I'm quite certain that I had two ready to go, but could only find one. I need to find it as my cousin needs a pair of baby booties before June.
-the receipt for the Adopt-A-Family wrapping paper that I bought with money from work

Currently Found:
-the Kristen hat kit
-my many-pack of Walker's Shortbread
-the pizza cutter
-the last book in a 12 book series
-my sneakers

just so you know...

Two things:
1. I originally posted this in my other blog, and totally didn't notice. That should tell you something about the second point.

2. If you are hungry in the late evening, and have the munchies, the following is a silly snack to choose:

• 1 Blue Moon Beer (12 oz) poured into a glass, with a slice of orange
• The rest of the orange

There really should be something that is less than 50% water in the snack.






So I added 3 Simple Shortbread cookies.

Long live mid-20s nutrition.

Fly fishing = no response

Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom

And this explains so much...

Trade-offs

Today, lunch is from Wendy's at Division and Ashland. The fries and chicken nuggets are subpar, and quite unpleasant. But then, the sweet, thick goodness of the Frosty makes me forget all that.

They are evil. It is the Frosty that keeps me coming back and buying the icky stuff.

Freeze! Keep your hands off the Mouse... my continued love affair with the big G

Because the world is a good and decent place, my friend Charlie, who I met during orientation my freshman year at CMU, is currently in town visiting. C used to live in Chicago, but now he works for Google in Mountain View. He makes servers work, I think. I'm sure that there is more to his job than that, but that's the gist of it. He moved out there a year ago, and I have missed him quite a lot, especially when I want to go out to dinner or see a movie, as he is good company for both of those activities. Tonight, I was on the schedule.

We met up, wandered around the vicinity of N. Michigan Avenue and then decided to retrieve my car from the parking lot it was in from my appointment, drove up to my place and had dinner at Thai Pastry. Afterwards, he came over to hang out, and as usually happens, showed me some new tricks that my computer can do, which, also as usual, involved seeing the clever new things that Google is up to, since I had mentioned that I couldn't figure out where they were hiding Reader, and I wanted to give it a try.

Here are the clever new things:
-Keystrokes are now enabled in my Gmail... way faster, its like using Pine or an old-school library computer card catalog system, but with a way better look and, sadly, no cheat sheet row at the bottom telling me all the choices.
-Google Reader, which is where I intend to read all bloggish things, in an attempt to increase productivity by not clicking through my entire list of things I read multiple times everyday, hoping for an update. Also, provided that I update it based on my link list at work, I won't have any more regularly read things that I can only check from one computer or the other because I don't actually know the web address.
-Personalized Google homepage is another thing that I have known existed, but never really explored in any depth, since the last time I had something like that, it was when the MyAndrew thing (is that what it was called? I just know that the SquirrelMail changed) at CMU was launched and it was a mess, so now I was wary of that sort of thing.
-Google Apps for Your Domain makes me want to go and get a domain, just so that I can use this product. In fact, I just might. Does anyone want to get in on a domain for something? I just want to try out the service and such. It comes with private label email...

Clearly, I am a Google fangirl, and there is not much that can be done about it. Someday, maybe, if I am lucky, I will find a job at Google that this theater major is qualified for and maybe I'll even get it. Suggestions? Let me know. Also, go and try out these new toys! Switch to keystrokes. Keep your hands off the mouse!

"Its like I'm eating warm, stale popcorn" -my roommate, this evening

For Christmas, I received a stovetop popcorn maker from Baxter and Magic (the dog and cat), which came with cute popcorn boxes and packets of "movie theater" popcorn to make, with the oil and kernels separated. And its gross. I have made a fair bit of very very good stovetop popcorn in the last few years, which I think is way better than movie theater popcorn that you get these days, since all that stuff is pre-popped and artificially flavored (not that i don't eat it, but I'm just saying... mine is better).

As I was dumping the divided pouch into the hand-crank popcorn popper, I thought to myself, "why is that oil so yellow?". Then, I noticed that there was a yellow powder that had been in with the kernels that all sort of clumped in the pan. So, apparently, it came with its own movie theater popcorn artificial flavoring. And it tastes like movie theater popcorn. The real stuff. In all of its staleness and fakeness.

I will report back when I try the popper with regular oil and popcorn kernels. If anyone actually likes this stuff (it is compelling to eat about 2 cups of it, then you think about it and wonder why you did), I will be happy to pay the shipping to send it out to you. Just drop a line and it'll be on its way.

Thank you Babs!

bluesanta
Originally uploaded by babelbabebts.

Ms. BabelBabe sent me two Christopher Radko ornaments that were her mothers, and this is one of them. It is huge, has its own storage box and I love it in all of its hand painted, glittery, Santa, Polish glass glory. The other one is the wishing well.

I am a very lucky girl to have such a nice blog friend. Thanks BB!

and Dingo was his name, oh

and Dingo was his name, oh
Originally uploaded by tdgirl.

Here is a photo of the most well-groomed dog that we saw in all of Australia. Also, I'm testing the blogging to beta in Flickr! (and yes, I know that they lost the exclamation point when yahoo! bought them... too bad, I think its kicky)

Beta

I went beta, as I'm sure you can tell.

So far, all I did was pick a new template, and email with Sarah Louise about it. I am knitting a new thing (finally!.... though it isn't the hat-for-dad that is due next Monday morning, for Xmas and all... its the one thing that he asked for, and I'm being a slacker!)

If anyone has tips for how to get buttons and my Flickr! badge back into my sidebar, I'd appreciate it, otherwise, I'll sort it out this week.

Questions I'm wondering about:

• What am I supposed to talk to the psychiatrist/therapist about?
• Does Blue Moon have a higher alcohol content than other beers?
• What is an "emergent" church? Is that code for liberal? Or is there a doctrinal difference?
  
• When is the best time to bring the gifts for my boss' grandkids to work for him to take home? Tomorrow? next Friday? Sometime in between? Drop them off at the house?
• I have an awesome pair of yellow plastic vintage needles that were my grandma's... how do I get another pair, in different sizes? I love the tips.
• Will my mittens come this week?

that is all.

Jesus Goes Shopping

Look, its Jesus in Chicago!

Open Letters

Dear Staples,
I figured out where all of your Large Binder Clips are. You can stop looking. They are all at the Office Depot.

Love, the girl who doesn't think that 1 1/4" binder clips are big enough

P.S. No, I don't want you to order them. If I wanted to order them, I wouldn't have come to the store in the first place.

**************************************************************************

Dear Joann Fabrics,
I do not like your decor section. Everything is very small, and thus useless for commercial decoration. But you suck me in with the hope that the large decoration section will somehow include large decorations. Alas, all you have are small decorations that I want to buy and put up on my own tree, but I do not have time to dilly dally with personal purchases when I need decor or props NOW.
Yours truly, a young project manager

**************************************************************************

Dear Decorators,
Those clips you have that go into the concession stand to hold decorations are really cool. Where did they come from?
Sincerely yours, me

**************************************************************************

Dear Apartment,
Why are you so inconsistent in temperature? Some nights, the radiators are blasting and its almost too hot. And then, you go for a few days where it is barely warm enough to be legal. I would just like you to find a middle ground and stay there, all winter, October through April. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is.
From, the girl on the East side of Apartment 2

**************************************************************************

Its the little things that are big...

48 table clips: $6

1 roll of red plastic table cloth: $12.99

4 dozen 2" binder clips: $12 (and 3 office supply superstores)

2 dozen 6" glitter snowflakes: $18

4 dozen 11" glitter snowflakes: $150

Finding snowflakes at two party stores of the same chain, the night before the preview party, that match what you bought from the wholesaler in October exactly, (except that they are retail priced and packaged individually) so that you don't have to take down the ones the crew put up this afternoon, nor do you have to explain to the designer that it really does look better with a mix of different types of snowflakes: Priceless!

I'll be meme for Christmas

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Egg nog is foul, so I'll go for Hot Chocolate, but in truth, my preference is for Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate or hot apple cider.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Um, what are you talking about? Santa doesn't wrap or put them under the tree. The stockings are by the fireplace, in the family room, where the gifts are stacked and the stockings stuffed. The regular, given by real, non-mythical gift-givers, are in the living room, wrapped, under the tree. My mother would never add wrapping to her list

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I grew up with multi lights, and I like them, but white for the house and a pre-lit tree, multi on the tree if you are getting strands.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope.

5. When do you put up your decorations?
At some point between Thanksgiving and the week before Christmas.

6. What is your favorite Christmas meal include?
Scrambled eggs, kringla, mimosas, banana goop, Christmas cookies, Christmas chocolates

7. Favorite Holiday Christmas memory as a child?
In Chicago, any of them that was just the nuclear family in the morning, with visiting neighbors in the afternoon. (You can read that as involving no paternal extended relatives)

In Minnesota, I was never really a child in the part of my life that I can remember, but our first Christmas there was nice, because there was some super-extended family and everyone was healthy.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
The truth? If I don't continue to profess belief, there will be no more Santa. So as far as I'm concerned, Santa is real, assisted by my mother with the logistics.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Yes. One, from my parents. My sister and I both receive pajamas and they are usually such that we make a coordinated pair. When we were very small, they were the same. Now, they are the same style, different patterns. Christmas is the one day of the year that I am gauranteed to wear matching pjs. (this pleases my family greatly) When we were small, there was sometimes more gift opening, but willpower increases as you grow up, and the one who most wants to open the gifts is my dad. He loses 3-1.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
If I get a tree, this will be my first year with a tree that has ornaments that are actually *mine* that I have saved from previous years and will add to in the future. If I find a pre-lit, fake tree that I like, I will set it up and show you all.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Snow is lovely. I love snow. Snow is a necessary part of the winter environment, it insulates the ground, provides water in the springtime and looks nice until it looks like dirty slush. I prefer to not drive in a blizzard, but I can and do manage even that just fine.

12. Can you ice skate?
yes, of course.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I can't remember my favorite gift to receive. However, my dad's crazy sister gave me a gray Columbia fleece jacket a few years ago that I wear pretty much continually. That is the best gift that I have ever received from her. I now own the blue fleece vest that my sister got that year and never wore, she finally cleaned out her closet and my mom gave it to me to love.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays Christmas for you?
Being home with my family for all the festivities.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Christmas Dessert?
COOKIES!!!. of any and all sort, except for gingerbread. Gingersnaps are ok. and my Aunt's ginger cookies. Just not that thick, chewy gingerbread stuff. There is a reason people don't eat the gingerbread houses.

16. What is your favorite Holiday Christmas tradition?
Cathedral Shelter Christmas Baskets and other Adopt-a-Family-type activities.

17. What tops your tree?
Nothing at my house (see above) and nothing at my mom's house since the glass-ball Santa from her childhood finally gave up years ago. I covet one of the Radko toppers, but that will wait until I have a real household set-up.

18. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
All of them, even the 12 days of Christmas, but not before Thanksgiving. In Church, my favorite Christmas Eve song is Joy to the World. In the Christmas Season of church, I like Go Tell it On the Mountain. On the radio, my favorite is Grandma got run over by a reindeer, as it reminds me of my very first snow day ever. (it was playing on the radio when I was told there would be no school in kindergarten... we had just moved to Chicago from San Francisco) Oh, and my mother's frustration with how funny I find it as she is sad for the squashed grandma that no one found until the morning. Cruel, but hilarious.

Another unexpected advert...

this time, in my most recent copy of The Economist, I found a large, surprising ad. With white text on a black background (and a freaking HUGE logo), is an ad for Al Jazeera in English, as a worldwide media outlet "uniquely positioned to reverse the global information flow, reporting from South to North...". For some reason, I never really thought about Al Jazeera as being a worldwide media source, or particularly mainstream outside of the Middle East, but I am obviously out of the loop. Do any of you with fancy TV service get Al Jazeera? I want to know what it is like. What kind of an accent do the anchors have? How do the politics swing? Does it look like a regular Western media outlet on screen, or more like a SNL spoof set?

Other things I learned since this ad sent me out of bed and onto the internet:

• Doha is in Qatar. Somehow I never put the "Doha round of trade talks" together with "CMU Qatar" as being in the same freaking place.
• Al Jazeera also has a magazine
• I still love the CIA World Factbook.
• You don't get a discount if you order the print version on Amazon.
• My mother wants a rice cooker for Xmas from the Dog
• Qatar is slightly smaller than Connecticut, and strangely has almost twice as many men as women. But not in the under-15 stats. What happens to all the women? Do they die? Emigrate? Become men? Shipped against their will to Bahrain?

New things that I wonder about:

• what is the history of the flags of Qatar and Bahrain that they are so similar?
• Will these bullet points show up as bullets? They used to, and recently I noticed that my template seems to have lost them. I am sad, and my posts look weirdly unformatted.
• Am I a nerd more because I love Ben's photos of rigging cable or because I would be very happy if I had a fresh copy of the World FactBook every year?
• What is a Thessalonian? Where is Thessalonia?

And now, it is time for sleeping, again.

I love google ads next to my email...

They just lead me to the oddest websites, which then make me wonder what the computer is "thinking" as it spools up that ad to go along with my email.

Today's discovery? EBurlap.com, which is exactly what you expect it to be. I've never thought much about burlap, but especially not about all of the niche markets and companies there are out in the world. Go take a look and be amazed at the wide variety of burlap products available to you.

Newest Friend of P

I am about a week late in mentioning this over here at the Mixer, but I now have learn-to-spin handspindle kits for sale over at Piddleloop. Each kit has a Babe handspindle (with the leader already attached), 2 ounces of Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) fiber, two (2) 1 oz. nests of "fluff" as Jennifer calls fiber for spinning, high quality instructional brochures from Interweave Press and all of it is in a handy canvas drawstring bag.

I chose the Babe spindle because it was (1) available for me to purchase in quantity at a reasonable price, to keep the kit price low, (2) adjustable for weight and (3) adjustable for whorl location in relation to the hook, so you can spin high or low whorl, even Balkan mid-whorl if you really want. As well, you can use two discs to make the spindle heavier for thicker yarn and/or plying and one disc for thinner yarn or just because. I have set up all the spindles with two whorls and a leader so that its ready to spin right out of the bag.

Jennifer has a lovely write-up about the kits on her blog about why these kits are good. I will be dying up more wool for kits, as her site statistics show that people click on the colored kits more than the ones with assorted types of fiber. Easter can't come soon enough, since I use Easter egg dyes as my primary acid dye. It doesn't have any smell (like kool aid) and there are more colors available. On a spin list I was given the hint to try to find packages that sound like they have two or three packs of color inside, since the factories are very inaccurate about only putting one packet in at a time. It totally works, and I got a few boxes last year that had extra colors.

So, if you have any interest in learning to make yarn, or you know someone who would like to learn, this kit is a very good value and has everything you need to make enough yarn for a hat.

Triple Dork

Mr. Ben Peoples, originally of Louisville, Kentucky and currently maintaining residence in Alameda, California with his lovely wife Sarah Deutsch, founder of Pinkleberry Services, would like to announce that he is officially a Triple Dork. Not only is Mr. Peoples a Rigging Dork and a Photo Dork, but he is also a Triple Dork as he wishes to promote his business, Ben Peoples Photography, via the 21st century medium known as blogging. Mr. Peoples invites all interested parties to visit his website, found at http://photo.goodtheatre.net. Quilters are encouraged to enquire within about his quilt photo shoots at reasonable rates.

A link will be added shortly to the side bar to the Ben Peoples Photography webpage.

Geek Alert

Elevator cables
Originally uploaded by blp1979.

Ben humored my desire to see pictures of the re-roping of his office building's elevators, and this one is a double geek picture... he's got high photographer lighting geek thing and the rigging geek thing both going on full strength here.

Thanks for putting these up on flickr! for me! And yes, I don't care if flickr! lost the ! when yahoo! bought them. I still prefer it as flickr! and yahoo. So there. I am the queen of my bloggity blog.

Whoa! Knitting Content!

The new MagKnits is up, and here are some thoughts:

• I am in love with Cinnabar! I am not much for things that I have to pay close attention to, which is why the girl that I am an Angel for in the One Skein Secret Pal Swap still doesn't have her gauntlets (they are so neat, but fiddly, and I had to rework the pattern to fit the yarn), but I absolutely need to knit this scarf. Does anyone want one on a no-way-will-I-have-a-deadline sort of way? I might make it for me, but I really like wearing my Yale Drama Scarf, and I can't be trusted with more than one scarf out of the closet at a time, so I'm not very inclined to make a wardrobe of scarves. Someday, I might have a coat rack, and then I could have more than one scarf.
• I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was not anything by a particular designer that I am not fond of, and then, when I went back through the archives to find things of her's to show you that I am not fond of, I see that she hasn't had anything for more than a year. So I was wrong, and that is probably the third time today that I have had to folly of backbiting pointed out to me by the universe. I thank God for reminding me to be a better person, even if it is a struggle every day. And this has not been gentle reminders. More like, slap me upside the head, shake me around and say, "Think Before You Speak! If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all! What goes around comes around! It is not your place to criticize! You might be right, but you are probably wrong, Check Your Facts!" I have had some lessons in humility today, that is all.
• The Party Lace Scarf is a nice idea, but it could use a firmer blocking and I think that the placement of the crystals is uninspired. But if someone wanted one, I might knit it, the pattern is pretty easy, even if the yarn is tricky.
• The world does not need anymore ruffled scarves. And that dog absolutely does not want to wear one.
• The Easygoing Potholders are a lovely idea, and if I made them, it would be with superwash wool, instead of cotton, or maybe felted wool. Mostly because wool is a better insulator, and also because it looks like a lined dishcloth right now. Probably because the designer used dishcloth yarn. The suggestion to make a matching apron is genius, and wonderful. I would not turn down an apron that matched my potholder.
• The Malagaiter has been done, but I still like it. The designer is from Minnesota, and I lover her comment in the pattern notes about men wearing a bow on the top of their heads. Go check it out. I just re-read the pattern, and this item might be the answer to my OSSP Swap Angel blues, it will use the same skein of yellow yarn, and I don't have to do anything fiddly. Oh, and there is a brioche option. I <3>
• The Counterpoint Scarf is one of the first illusion knit scarves that has made me think that illusion knitting is anything beyond novel knitting. It uses the need to look at the scarf from the edge in a way that is logical. Also, if you have a music enthusiast in your life, they could wear this scarf without everyone saying, "Hey, great piano scarf you've got there." I probably won't make it, but if I ever need a scarf that looks like a piano but doesn't look like a piano scarf, I will know that the pattern is out there.
• K-Chan is by yet another Minnesota knitter (in a British magazine too!), and I think that I might print it out for my SP9 pal, along with getting her a certain other one-skein Kureyon pattern, to go along with a skein that I bought at Coldwater over Thanksgiving.
• I won't leave out the Hourglass Socks in my mention, but sock patterns don't really draw me in. I think that knitting socks is a great idea, but as patterns, they still look like socks. I'm sure that it is a well-written pattern, but I don't really care about more sock patterns. I don't knit socks very often, I just can't get gauge.

That is what I have to say about the new MagKnits. There should also be a new Knitty coming out soon, which will be fun. This weekend will be all about knitting, dying balls of roving and finishing my Christmas Basket.

Keep Smiling! =)