Back in grade school, one of my friends bought a “slam book” and brought it to class. Each page had a category, like “Favorite song” or “Boy you like”, with a bunch of numbered lines for everyone’s answers. One page puzzled us though: “Pet Peeves”. As I was the class brain, everyone turned to me for an explanation. “I think it’s, like, stuff that annoys you… about pets.” Okay, so I was sorta close. I remember everyone then writing down stuff like “When they pee in the house” and “When they jump on you” as their answers. It was years before I figured out my mistake.

Anyway, my Pet Peeve O’ The Day: people who touch your computer monitor while pointing at something and leave greasy fingerprints all over it. That drives me nuts! Okay, now it’s your turn to vent…

The The Age ran a great interview with Dr. Atkins today entitled “Look Mum, No Carbs”. It’s an excellent introduction to the low-carb lifestyle and addresses some of the criticism that’s been written about it. It also tries to explain how the diet works, which is something that often gets lost in the usual “You can eat steaks deep-fried in butter and still lose weight!” tabloid angle.

“Tens of thousands attend Sydney peace rally.” Yes, the Snook and I were among them, and yes, we made those T-shirts ourselves. (Full props to the ladies at Glitter for inspiring my slogan.) I’ve posted my pictures from the event here.

Did you go to a demonstration? Did you not go for any specific reason? We wanna hear about it.

Channel 10 just showed E.T. as counter-programming to the Cricket World Cup. Man, that movie always makes me cry. Afterwards I had to go back and read Ebert’s excellent review, which is one of my favorites. I love that he signs it “Grandpa Roger.” 🙂

Friday Five:

1. Explain why you started to journal/blog.
The biggest reason is that I was thousands of miles away from my family and friends and, well, phone bills are expensive. It was an easy way for the fam to keep up with my life. In addition to that, I’m addicted to the Internet and I talk a lot. I like to code and figure out stuff. I’m also kind of a fame-whore. So yeah, it was all those.

2. Do people you interact with day to day or family members know about your journal/blog? Why or why not?
Yep. Pretty much everybody knows about it. I even put it on my CV nowadays, just so employers aren’t surprised if they discover it later. I know that some folks get off on the anonymity of the Web, but personally I find that rather dehumanizing. It’s so much nicer to think that a website actually represents a real human person. That’s why I made it a priority to be known and accountable on my site. It forces me and everybody who visits the site to remember that we’re all individuals, and I think it results in less flamage and a higher level of discourse. Plus, like I said, I’m a big fame-whore.

3. Do you have a theme for your journal/blog?
Not really. It goes through phases depending on my current interests – like now, when it’s “Craft-O-Rama 24/7!” – but that’s not really a conscious choice. As my header graphic indicates, the overall theme is probably just “Me”.

4. What direction would you like to have your journal/blog go in over the next year?
You know what? To be honest, I hope it continues on exactly as it has. We’ve got such a good little community built up here and I don’t want that to change. I’m certainly not going to do anything different.

5. Pimp five of your favorite journals/blogs.
My favorites are listed down on the right, and I love ’em all. If you held a gun to my head, though, I’d have to admit that the five sites I seem to check most often are Lots of Co., Sore Eyes, Scrubbles, defective yeti, and Krisalis. They all blog about such different things and they’ve always got new content up. I’m a sucker for frequent updates. 🙂

I have officially put out my shingle as a Harry Potter knitter-for-hire. My backlog is just about cleared out, so new orders will be started almost immediately!

As there seems to be little interest right now (even from me), I’m officially putting “The Book Group” on hiatus. The old discussions are still active, though, so feel free to keep adding to them.

Question: Would you participate in an anti-war demonstration or a “walk for peace”? (I’m not asking about your stance on the Iraq issue, but strictly whether you’d participate in something like that.) Why or why not?

Happy Valentine’s Day! For the second year running, the Snook and I decided to forego the commercialism of the “holiday” and just enjoy being together. Therefore when he brought home flowers and the Beauty and the Beast Special Edition DVD I immediately launched into my “But you said we weren’t exchanging gifts!” tirade. He assures me, though, that these are actually “Get Well Kristy” presents that just happened to coincide with the 14th of February. Which is really great, because my conscience gets to be happy knowing we didn’t buy into all the Hallmark manufactured schmoopiness while my girly side gets to indulge in pink tulips and fairy tales. 🙂

Who could you take in a fight? I could take Eddie Vedder, especially since he gave such a wimpy-ass answer.