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OH MY! We just watched the Amazing Race finale, and… (Don’t look, Robert!)HOW AWESOME WAS THAT? Seriously, that was my dream finish. I kept saying that I didn’t care who won as long as it wasn’t the Weavers, but during that INCREDIBLY TENSE map puzzle I really was on the edge of my seat rooting for the Linzes. I’m so happy they won! And what a great road block to end the race on! I like that it actually did sort of encapsulate the whole season and emphasize that even though it’s a game, Americans really do need to learn more about the continent they live on. And HA, even if the Weavers had gotten there first, those home-schooled idiots would never have even finished it! It was brilliant. I loved seeing the other teams at the Finish Line, knowing that they all really did want the Linzes to win as much as we did. How great was Megan? They kept talking about her having trouble keeping up, but really, it’s not like she was a chunker or anything. Her brothers are just totally fit. I love that finally a chick won who actually contributed to her team and didn’t make me embarrassed to be a girl. YOU KICK ASS, MEGAN! (And you still suck, Flo.) Really, for a season that sorta sucked at the beginning, it really did end on a high note. And how much am I looking forward to the next one? I cringed at the bar hoochies but as soon as they showed the nerd couple, the Snook and I were like, “OH MY GOD, IT’S US!” and totally high-fived. We’re already barracking for the geek team.

What the hell? Now they’re telling people to avoid Bondi, one week before Christmas? This could get very ugly.

I have these trivia quizzes over on my Dahl site, and anybody who gets a perfect score gets their name published on the Trivia Master Board. Of course, kids being kids and all, I have to check the names before they get posted lest I end up with a bunch of naughty words. This morning I was scanning through 2500 names (yeah, I don’t update much anymore) when a few actually caught my eye and made me grin:

• “Homer Sexual”
• “IShouldGetOutMore”
• “Joseph Sciancalepore (Shank-la-poor)” It took me a minute to realize he was giving me the pronunciation.
• “poopala”
• “Southern Gentleman”
• “STEPHANIE CULLEN (I PREFER TO BE CALLED STEPH PLEASE)”
• “vermicious ED”

And I only had to delete about 20 obscenities! Maybe the children are our future…

Good grief. If Marty and Jess can’t make it work, what hope do the rest of us have?

An actual e-mail from an actual (former) customer

no, what i was enquiring about in your shop today was not ‘for my wife’. i have never come across such blatant patronising sexism. i have been working with wool and canvas for over 30 years and wanted to know the price of mono 14 count canvas. i will never shop in your premises again and i will relish in regaling my sordid tale and actively encouraging everyone i know stitchers and knitters alike to avoid your store at all costs

I’m still shaking my head over this. I sent him an apology, of course, but here’s what I WISH I had written:

Dear Polly Prissy Pants,
Give me a break. Ninety-nine percent of the men who come in our shop are only there to pick something up for a female family member, and most of them get so defensive about the fact that they’re in a “craft store” that you’d think we were giving free castrations out the back. So if a member of staff accidentally implies that you might not be shopping for yourself, that’s not sexism… IT’S STATISTICS. We’re all about guys who stitch. Seriously. Ask any of the (admittedly few) guys who come to the shop SnB. They’re treated like rock stars. Needlecraft has been belittled as “women’s work” for so long that when anybody with a Y chromosome takes an interest, we fall all over ourselves trying to help them out. We think it’s sexy. (See: “Russell Crowe knitting”.) So maybe you could, like, GET OVER YOURSELF, okay? I deal with “blatant patronising sexism” every day of the week, so forgive me for dismissing your cries of “Help, help; I’m being repressed!” Call me when you’re getting harrassed on the street and earning seventy-five cents on the dollar. Seriously. I’ll teach you to knit.

Obi-Wan and AIDS babies. Could Ewan McGregor be any nicer? He could not.

“The Lion, The Witch, and the Really Foul Candy.” Heh. A lot of kids are going to be in for a shock when they get their first taste of Turkish Delight. Oh, and I could’ve written this article… last year!

Dude, how come I never see ads for volunteers to lay in bed for two months until too late?

Since a couple people have asked me about the riots in Sydney, no, they’re not anywhere near us. It’s all way, way out in the suburbs. Just to illustrate, there’s a map of “Sydney” in that article and I thought the BBC had screwed up at first by putting the airport on the northern side of the harbour. However, discussion with the Snook confirmed that the body of water shown is actually Botany Bay, thus most of what people think of as Sydney (and the part we actually live in) is off the screen to the north. So don’t worry about us.

Jon just posted a huge and fascinating photo-essay about his recent trip to Seaside, Florida. He and his colleagues were studying New Urbanism, which as I understand it is a form of city-planning that Seaside (and a few other towns) exemplifies. I actually visited Seaside with the fam a few years ago as a break between theme parks, and all we really knew about it was that it was cute and it was “that town from The Truman Show.” It’s interesting to look at Jon’s photos and see a lot of the features (and the reasoning behind them) that we missed.