Links that I’m reading/watching/listening to/thinking about
How silk is made. Wow, the cocoons look like packing peanuts! (Apologies to the vegan knitters. I know several knitters who refuse to knit with silk. That’s their choice. Me, I like the feel of a little silk in a wool blend. The 100% silk yarns that I’ve felt haven’t really appealed to me. Too squeaky.)
Edited 05/05/2025: Link is dead and not archived.
Real Men Wear Suits. My favorite new site. (Yeah, the URL is cheeky.)
I got an email yesterday letting me know that I was being followed on Twitter by @motherabigail. *snort* “Oh neat,” I thought. “People are twittering as the characters from The Stand.” This morning I got another notification that I was being followed by @VegasWalkinDude (presumably because I tweeted that I’d meet everybody in Hemingford Home). There are lots of other characters out there (@Nick_Andros, @Stu_Redman, @larry_underwood, @Nadine_Cross, @MOONtomcullen. They’re all pretty well done, sending @ messages back and forth and following the timeline of the story. That said, reading them on the bus in the rain this morning surrounded by sniffling passengers… it started to creep me out a little bit. I have an overactive imagination.
So to assuage my own anxieties, I just did some Googling. The fatality rate in Mexico (according to this article) is 6%. Which sucks, yeah, but we’re not at Captain Tripps levels yet. I’ll hold off til the weekend on stocking up on guns and batteries. (I suppose at least the fact that Australia is never mentioned in the books should make me feel a bit safer. Evidently Randall Flag only operates in the continental US.)
12 Major Brands That Will Disappear in 2009. Old Navy? NOOOOOOOO! Crap, where are Snookums and I going to stock up on cheap American clothes when we next go home? And sorry Daniel – Crocs is on the list too! (Link courtesy of Rebecca’s Pocket.)
Holy crap! The confirmed case of swine flu in northern Indiana is actually a Notre Dame student! That’s one way to get out of your mid-terms. In all seriousness though, this will probably keep us from visiting home until the whole thing blows over. Not because I fear the swine flu, but just because we’d probably have to deal with all sorts of hassles when we got back here.
Edited 29/04/2025: Link is dead and not archived.
Last week I received a pretty random-yet-fun email request from Kat Murello, an actress working in New York. Her New Year’s Resolution for 2009 is to “hold a higher primate.” Yep, she wants to touch a monkey. So she’s booked in a trip to do it in a few months, and to build excitement she’s featuring monkey-related links on her blog every Monday. She was googling the topic recently and found these photos from our trip to Singapore eight years ago. She emailed to ask if I’d mind writing up my experience holding the chimpanzee. I figured, what the hell. So I went her my reply and she posted it today. Enjoy!
Edited 27/04/2025: Link to my entry is dead and not archived.
Another cute square-bottomed tote bag sewing tutorial: The Jordy Bag.
WAIT JUST A SECOND. You mean that the crazy underwater restaurant where Muriel gets dumped by Sophie Lee and her bitchy friends in Muriel’s Wedding actually exists and I can go there? And it’s not even that far from my house!
Periodic Table of Knitting. I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished.
