Swapperiffic!
The third swap in the “Australian Knitters” group on Ravelry is taking place this week, and I just got my package! It came from the awesome “tasknits” (aka Gill) down in Somerset, Tasmania. She made me a beautiful black beret and matching mittens with red cable trim. I also got a calico bag, a bunch of cool gear from the Burnie Ten (a famous 10K race down there), a bookmark, and some chocolates. Thanks, tasknits! I used my work webcam to snap a quick picture of my hat and mittens:

My own swappee’s package will be sent at the very last minute tomorrow. It’s been a crazy week.

The secrets of perfect chocolate chip cookies. Damn! I made chocolate chip cookies Wednesday night and I didn’t rest them for 36 hours or put fleur de sel on top. Yet somehow when the Snook and I took batches to work yesterday, they all disappeared. Everybody loved them! So perhaps the real secret is that the perfect homemade chocolate chip cookie… is the one somebody else bakes for you. (Link courtesy of Miss Fee.)

It’s official: I am flying to the States on Sunday morning for nearly three weeks at our LA office. I’ll be staying at the company apartment in Santa Monica. On the first weekend, I’m going to fly up to visit the Carbos. On the second, I’m going to try to get back to Indiana. They’ll be quick visits, but hey, at least I’m getting the big flight for free!

It’s going to be a little weird to be away from Snookums for so long. I refused to get schmoopy about it though. It’s like those people on Survivor; I get so annoyed when they start crying after two weeks without their wife. It’ll be fun to have this little adventure on my own, right? (And you know he’ll be enjoying bachelor life back here…)

The customer is always _____?
I’ve been having fun reading this epic Metafilter thread about some blogger who was denied espresso over ice at his local coffee shop. The coffee shop owner claimed that it’s because espresso over ice goes sour and icky, and anyway most people just turn around and make “ghetto lattes” with it. The blogger felt like he should be able to order whatever he wants, coffee-snobs be damned. The MeFi discussion pretty much covers the whole spectrum. I was particular interested when people started bringing other service professionals into it. Like, should a good bartender serve a customer single-malt scotch and soda? Would a true culinary artist acquiesce to a customer’s demand for risotto with a side of spaghetti? Should a real music fan refuse to sell a treacly Steve Wonder hit? Or – to make it relative to my own experience – should a yarn store employee sell a newbie Feathers yarn to make their first scarf?

Personally, I tried to talk people out of bad decisions. If I felt they were going to be disappointed with their project, I’d tell them why their chosen yarn wasn’t really suitable for their pattern. Then I’d suggest alternatives. But I’d never go so far as to refuse to sell them what they wanted. If they want to kill themselves making a aran jumper out of cotton or a six foot long scarf out of Feathers, so be it. We’d had a “Knitting Nazi” working at the store before, and it’s just not good for business.

Free speech prevails. FANTASTIC.

Wii MotionPlus. Neat! Now bring on the lightsaber games. 🙂

Quoth the Snook: “Heh. The kitteh is runnin.” (Drag the box really slowly.) It’s actually from a children’s book that I’ve got to give to my nephew Isaiah when I finally see him…

Holy crap. I’ve got a big important presentation at work this morning… and it looks like I’ll be flying to LA this weekend to spend two weeks at our American office. (When did I get so fancy-pants? It’s like I’m in Working Girl or something.) Anyway, who do I know in LA? Anybody? Drop me a line if you’re willing to go out to dinner with me or something.

Update: The presentation? ROCKED. Who would’ve guessed that my high school speech team experience would turn out to be my most marketable skill?

Something wicked this way comes.
We caught a great film on the TiFaux this weekend: Orson Welles’s Macbeth. The Snook walked in during the very first scene and guessed, “Genghis Khan?” No, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that based on some of the wack costumes they wear. The landscape and setting are crazy too. It took me a long time to figure out that the giant rocky mountaintop where everything seemed to take place… was actually Dunsinane, the castle. It was really surreal and atmospheric and weird. There were characters (that crazy medicine man/priest with the long braids?) that I didn’t remember from before. Some characters would drift in and out of Scottish accents. Yet the story was still there, complete with all my favorite speeches*, and it was still powerful. I liked Welles’s touch of having some of the soliloquies be voice-over instead of spoken aloud. The shots of “Birnam Wood” marching through the mist towards the castle were unexpectedly eerie and beautiful. This one is definitely recommended, if you like your Shakespeare on the weird, expressionistic side.

* Snookums was slightly disappointed though that his favorite speech got cut. It’s the scene directly after Duncan’s murder, when the drunken porter goes to answer the door and goes on a long ramble about the effects of alcohol on the male anatomy.