US President Turns Off Australian Women. Well, no DUH. I like the picture they chose to illustrate the story though. Heh. Baby fish mouth.
Month: April 2005 (page 4 of 7)
At long last, Cheesylove is finished! This is the Knitty pattern I started well over a year ago. At one point, I completely frogged it back to the beginning and started over (which meant re-casting on A THOUSAND stitches for the ruffle. Do you know how long it takes to do ANYTHING a thousand times? I do.). I was toying with the idea of putting short sleeves on it but in the end I decided I liked it better as a vest. Pattern notes follow.For the body of the vest, I used Heirloom EasyCare 8-ply. I can’t even remember why; it was that long ago. But it gave me the right gauge and it’s not too scratchy. The hearts are done in Heirloom Aristocrat 12-ply mohair/wool, which makes them stand out nicely. As usual, the Knitty pattern had several problems wrong with it. The biggest was that it told you to mark the side seams and then do your shaping on either side of it, without any indication which increases/decreases to use nor where to place them to ensure the ribbing didn’t get buggered. (This is part of the reason I frogged it back. My initial seamlines looked crap and it bothered me.) In the end, instead of merely marking the seam, I actually used two markers to isolate the actual side rib. Then I made paired increases/decreases in the ribs on either side of it so that they grew or shrank organically while the center rib remained whole. (Yeah, yeah, I know. It was a lot of thinking and planning for what basically amounts to the armpit of a garment. But I’m really happy with how I did it, and quite frankly I get a little thrill out of knowing that I did it the best way possible.) For the armbands, I simply picked up around the holes with the smaller sized needle and knitted 5 rows of K1P1 rib before casting off. (That way it matches the neckband.) It’s not the most stylish garment in the world, but I think I executed the design better than any other pattern I’ve tried before.
Good Lord! 622 Music Videos. I don’t know who this guy is, but he ROCKS. Most of them are in Quicktime, it looks like. Lots of stuff from 80’s and 90’s. (Amy‘s gonna be all over this.) I’m grabbing the two Matthew Sweet videos right now. Squee! (Link courtesy of MetaFilter.)
A little while later: Hey, that’s Samantha Mathis in REM’s “Strange Currencies” video, isn’t it? The forgotten little sister in the holy alterna-girl triumvirate of Claire and Winona. Major 90’s flashbacks here. And I really liked “At My Most Beautiful” too. I can’t figure out who the chick is. She looks like she could be one of the Phoenixes, but I can’t find her credited anywhere.
I just discovered that I’ve been suffering from Keratosis Pilaris my whole life! Well, I knew I was suffering from something, but I didn’t know what it was called. My brother’s got it too. I think I’ve been growing out of it, slowly, but it’s not completely gone yet. Damn bumpy arms!
Did anyone else feel a tremor in the Force today? The Snook has ventured into the belly of the beast. I triple-dog-dared him to wear one of my Apple shirts but he declined. Wimp!
This BBC story about eight newspapers “backing” the “Apple bloggers” (ThinkSecret, et al) is so stupid. No judge – or right-minded person, for that matter – would equate a case of corporate whistleblowing with leaking trade secrets. One is in the public interest. One is not. The public may be interested in knowing Apple’s every move – I know I am – but to compare it with Watergate is a bit much, I think.
Woohoo! Tiger ships on April 29. It also looks like they aren’t making the Aussies wait an extra day, so we should be the first ones in the world to get it!
TV Stuff:
- Man, how awesome is Survivor Stephanie? She’s tough and she’s optimistic and she eats bird fetuses and she’s got great abs and she Dutch-braids her own hair. (Mental note: Update goals in WW notebook to read “Become Stephenie.”) I feel like if I knew her in real life I’d probably hate her because we’d both be so competitive, but I love watching her kick butt on the show. Well, “kick butt” in the sense of “trying really hard in the face of relentless defeat.” Oh, and let us never speak of the bird fetuses again, because I’m still cringing. That is my ultimate, ULTIMATE nightmare. The Snook kept laughing at my horror. I was like, “You don’t understand. The notion of a Very Small Animal being in my hand scares the bejesus out of me, so the thought of having one in my mouth…” HORROR.
- I can’t believe I didn’t mention this, but what’s up with Days changing Belles on me TWICE IN TWO WEEKS? I never even realized how much I liked the first actress, but man, Belle #2 brought it home big time. She sucked. She was a bad actress, she had no chemistry with either Philip or Shawn, and – it feels shallow to admit it but hey, I’m talking about a soap here – she was really unattractive. A total minger. Within the space of one episode my interest in that storyline dropped about 500%. I started actively rooting for Jan to complete Shawn’s brainwashing and win him over. But just as soon as I’d resigned myself to the situation… they changed her again! Belle #3 is definitely prettier and less whiny, but she’s still no Original Belle. She has sort of a pinched, anorexic look about her. Gain five pounds, Belle #3, and you could vault to the top of my Favorite Belle List! And now I’m back to hating crazy psycho Jan.
- As far as I can tell it hasn’t aired in the US yet, so you Americans simply MUST watch Operatunity when it comes on PBS. It’s a documentary shot a few years ago in England where non-professional singers vied to be chosen to perform with the English National Opera. (“Opera Idol,” if you will.) I absolutely loved it, even though I totally guessed the ultimate winners really early. I still cried when they won though. There were just all these normal people who had a gift – albeit one with not a lot of practical use today – and most of them had given up so much of their dreams along the way. The big finalé performance was on Sunday and I’ve got it taped to watch this weekend. Can’t wait…
- We’re still gamely watching each episode of Desperate Housewives, but it’s really not catching on with either me or the Snook. Every now and then we halfheartedly make a prediction about the mystery, but mostly we just don’t care. I don’t predict we’ll be TiFauxing it much longer.
- Lost, on the other hand, has us and most of Australia hooked. We actually missed the last episode (since it conflicted with Operatunity) but it seems several the Snook’s co-workers were able to burn copies for him. I’m dying to figure out who whacked Sayid when he was triangulating the signal.
- Oh, and in case you haven’t visited our house in the last month and been personally subjected to a viewing, the Snook and I are officially obsessed with Arrested Development. We’ve watched the entire Series 1 DVDs (Thank you Kel!), like, three times now. I must admit, my favorite character of all is Buster. I say “Hey, Hermano!” at least once a day. Unfortunately we’re going to have to wait til Season 2 airs here, I think. The Snook’s been nosing around on the torrent sites and apparently only the more recent episodes are available, and we don’t want to watch them out of order. Damn!
*wink* I’m looking for a copy of WWCalc, if, uh, anybody has one. *rubs nose meaningfully*
Oh my god. EXTREME CUTENESS ALERT! The Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics. It’s all pictures people have sent in of their cats sleeping in weird positions. We make fun of Dr. Amy Jones for this stuff all the time. She likes to splay on her back with her legs spread out in a very lewd fashion. She’s a bit of an Aussie hornbag, I think. (Link courtesy of John.)