I'm about halfway down the foot of my Basic Cabled Socks out of Socks that Rock's "Fire On the Mountain"

I used a short row heel, the texture on the heel flaps usually make the back of my heel sore when I wear them in shoes (neither my mom, or dad, or my sister, or anybody else I really know for that matter, has this problem... I guess I just have a tender heel (NOT to be confused with a tenderfoot :-P). I decided to try and see how the short row does for me...

SO!... here it is, my foot, doing it's porcupine impression, yet again...

I'm not realy happy with how 'pointy' the heel came out. I hope this flattens and stretches to form with wear. I'll have to remember next time to stop sooner in my short-rowing...

*humming "row row row your heel... gently down the streeeam"*...

It's just so great to get to wear something that I MADE! I've gotten to wear my tipless gloves out atleast 3 times now and it makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside everytime I do *huge grin*

I guess I'm not a sci-fi person... no I take that back, I can appreciate sci-fi; Star Wars, Star-Trek (Men in Black ;-) ) and the like. I just don't appreciate the aliens-invaded-and-ate-everybody horror/sci-fi. That said I AM a classic radio person, therefore when they remade War Of The Worlds with Tom Cruise, I had a lapse of good judgment and decided I HAD to see it and I bet it would be good. So when my Sister and Brother-in-law rented it night before last I went over to their place to watch it.

(warning: probably some spoilers)

It started out pretty good, with the classic "Dark and Stormy night" and straaaange things happening 'they're here' type realizations...
Then the aliens, or rather their vehichles appeared. They started stomping around and vaporizing people, nothing too horrid except a few really quick shots that were a little too closeup...

Then things started to turn bad, some people who actually had speaking parts got zapped. The main character's lives started getting jeopardized... well more than they already had been... and everyone was getting more and more panicked... and a little cranky.

Stuff took a turn for the worse (heh, like it hadn't already), some gruesome evidence that our planet really was under attack was seen by the cute little girl in a rural country area that didn't at first seem to have been touched at all.

Fast forward about 45 min, there are these blood-red plants growing everywhere, our main character and his daughter are hiding out in a basement with an insane dude and his peach schnops, the aliens are spraying plant food all over everything (think fish-fertilizer on a far more morbid level), and we see our first glimps of some real ugly aliens.
At this point I was sitting on the bed with a sour-lemon eyebrows-knit type face muttering "ew...ew...ew...ew...ew..." and was contemplating an attempt to lose myself in my half knitted sock, when someone had the nerve to STOP the movie and then to get distracted!
I demanded that they come back NOW, I needed closure. I HAD to finish this movie!

Mom asked later how it ended... I told her "as well as could be expected" - considering that half the population got eaten and the other half had some serious 'issues' to work through...

...but I'm sure the therapists had a thriving enterprise... as long as there were some left.

There was a happy part, but it's a super major spoiler, so I wont tell you. Ha.

When it was all over I had to counter all this with a good solid dose of comedy, so I stayed up late (I wouldn't have slept anyway :-P) and we watched "The Pacifier" ;-)

I've been discovering "Socks That Rock" yarns from Blue Moon Fiber Arts Several weeks ago my mother bought bought these two skeins:

The top one is Fire On The Mountain and the lower one is Lapis. When I fell in love with Fire On The Mountain, my mother graciously gave it to me!! I felt horribly about relieving her of such a gorgeous skein of yarn...

... but eventually I talked myself into it, I got over the guilt, and my greed won out ;-)

When I started balling it, I hit multiple knots, a little concerned with this, I started my swatch, but then left it after about 8 rows to wait to hear back from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. When we did hear back they were really really nice about it, probably even more disgusted than we were to know of so many knots in one of their skeins, and promply sent out a new skein of Fire On The Mountain. So in the end I ended up with a skein that my mom gave me, and she still had a skein! How cool is that?!

I decided to make this into Basic Cabled Socks it uses a size 1 needle (glorified toothpics) and is pretty much just the pattern for the cuff. The picture on Blue Moon's website (this picture a little too) just doesn't quite do the colors justice... they're soo rich and soo colorful and yet somehow they manage not to be muddy! It's so cool! I can't decide whether the skein looks nicer in skein form or balled... hmmm.

My sock is now much further along, past the heel. I really need to update, but I'd like to get a picture first.

...and I don't even have an iPod!

It all started with somebody posting a link to the NPR website. I started looking around a little and found "Wait, Wait... Don't tell Me" a news 'game show' (more of a satirical comedic commentary on rediculous or amusing news stories - like the one our dear VP was involved in just a short time ago ;-) )

Well, when I went to show this to my sister, the WindowsMedia stream wasn't working for her, so I opened up iTunes (my chosen MP3 program on my computer, it's free, it works, and I can convert my own CD tracks to .MP3 to listen to on my computer... my other programs wanted to save them as .WMA or their own silly thing that wasn't a universal file extension :-P) and went to the music store and found the NPR podcast section, looking for an different way to download "wait, wait... don't tell me!" for my sister...
Welllll, they had it! as a FREE MP3 and a 'subscribe' link so it will always update every week. I thought this was just too cool, I looked at their other stuff put out by public broadcasters. Like PBS, BBC, CBC and of course, NPR.

I was hooked.

I even found a 5 min documentary on tupperware! Who wouldn't be in love with podcasts at this point?!? Ooh and an Irish Documentary on Artic Foxes and the ice age in Ireland (their accents put me to sleep lol)

Then last night I was cruising around on the podcasts section of the itunes music store and I found the "Radio Memories" podcast, many of these podcasts are old radio shows!

Well here's the clincher...
[I bet ya'll had given up on this having anything to do with knitting hadn't you? You unfaithful ingrates!]
These are the BEST things to listen to when I'm knitting! I don't need to look up and see it to know what's happening, but it keeps my mind busy while I'm knitting 72 stitches of k2p2 on sz 1 needles for 8 inches...
So, if I were to ever recieve an Oscar for knitting (Oh hush! I'm talking theorietically here!) I would now have to tack on to my acceptance speech, "...and to all the little poscasts, they kept me sane through the hard times and the less glamorous days of my knitting."

I have to rip out the second half of my short row heel becaue I did the purl side wraps wrong *glares*

*sigh* ah well... I guess that's not really that much, but this is already the second time I've knit this heel. I needed to rip it out anyway, so I decided I'd try a different type of short row and see if that went better...

*dark look* It's being such a... a... heel.

*cough* sorry... that was bad.

After getting to see Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H knitting on episode 5.15 "38 Across" (he had a knitting basket and everything!), one of the younger people of the house was watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, and I overheard this episode of Dudley-Do-Right...

The show opens with Nell knitting for Dudley-Do-Right, and her father - Inspector Fenwick - is disgusted with all the sweaters she's always knitting for the Mounties, especially the extraordinary number of sweaters she's knitted for Dudley...
Dudley finally admits his mutual distaste for her knitted sweaters, and tells her how it's much too hot there for sweaters anyway [The curse of the love sweater at work!]. So Nell, hurt [understandably!], sadly runs off into the hills [wouldn't we all?], and stumbles across Snidely Whiplash, he admires her work, and asks her to knit for him, and even supplies her with the yarn! [aaaaww... there IS some good in him!]

Dudley is sent to look for Nell, but told by Fenwick to "first brake her needles" [*glares* He has quite an evil streak... I thought he was a GOOD guy!!]. But before Dudley can get to her, Nell has happily knitted Snidely a full suit [and in what seemed like only mere seconds... that's some knitter! - the feats that can be accomplished in cartoons... it's amazing!], ecstatic to finally find someone who appreciates her talents [in my eyes she's blameless...], little does she know, the yarn was bullet proof!! *GASP!* [see? there's proof! ANYTHING can be knitted!]

Well of course the Mounties can't go up against this! Snidely's invincible! So Nell brings in a swarm of moths, and it eats Snidely's suit! [Everything has it's weakness *sigh*] But alas at the same time the moths took all the Mounties' clothes! [How embarassing!]

But fear not! Nell and her knitting come to the rescue! Much to her father's chagrin.

And everyone lives happily ever after...

...except Snidely Whiplash... of course...

I realized that, this being a knitting blog, maybe I ought to have blogged a knitting post somewhere in the midst of those 9 non-knitting posts...

But alas I did not... so I decided it's about time I let ya'll in on what I'm up to. Sometime recently (I believe it was thursday) I officially
finished my tipless gloves by weaving in the last end!!! They had been done a few days before that, but I hadn't finished weaving all the ends in, and I don't consider something like that done until I do all the little finishing touches, or I would never weave those stinkin' ends in! Especially when there's 11 ends per glove to weave in and 5-10 little holes (where the fingers join) to draw up. Ther yarn isn't quite so luxuriously soft against my cheeks or wrists as I would expect for how dreamy it feels when I touch it with my hands. I was afraid for awhile it would make my wrists itch, but I wore them out last night, and I had no such problem *huge grin* .

Here's a picture of the first finished glove:

it's coming... honest...

*waiting for photo program to load*

*humming*

*twidles thumbs*

*editing/resizing*

argh! I just closed the whole photo editing program!...

*mental note to pay more attention next time to which little x I'm clicking *

*re-opening........*

*re-editing........*

*uploading image...*

*notices that I already resized and uploaded this same image on the third*
blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

there!

I thought about posting a picture of both the gloves, and then I realized that to for me to be wearing them in the picture and take the picture at the same time, would be... well... difficult.
Sorta like trying to write your name on your pencil, when the only writing intsrument you have around you is... your pencil.

No, this isn't avoiding the last minute rush, but avoiding that last day of work BEFORE the last minute rush, you know, like when you're having friends over for dinner, and the day before you work your tail off cleaning, working, cooking...

I've always hated that last day, it drags on and on, and you feel like you shouldn't stop and do anything fun because you need to be working... Not that I always do just keep pegging away working, usually I end up sitting and doing something fun and the just feel guilty that I'm not working...

I've always liked the friends-call-2hrs-before-dinner-and-tell-you-they're-coming (or you're possesed with the sudden urge to have someone over for dinner and you stupidly call and invite them, and leave yourself only 2 or 3 hrs for preperation) method much better, you run around like a chicken with your head cut off, and actually manage to get the house presentable in time!

Well I discovered a new way of avoiding the 'last day work'**...
But this didn't have to do with people coming, or house cleaning at all for that matter, it has to do with performances, and I have broken it down into an easy 3 step program...

Step 1) put a day later in your mental calendar then when you should actually be playing your harp at the Valentines Dinner...
(this works best if you truely have the day wrong, so have a friend help you with this... or have someone tell you how many days you have to practice and then do the math wrong, that works too)

Step 2) When your performance is 'the day after tomorrow' casually mention to someone else attending that "You'll see them Saturday"...

and then wait for them to respond with...
"Saturday? What's Saturday?"

"The dinner's Saturday..."

"It is? I thought it was Friday..."

Step 3) Take a moment to soak in this conversation before you eloquently respond with...

..."WHAT?!"

I'm not sure I really liked this particular method of avoiding the 'last day work'... I think avoiding the 'last day work', works better with house cleaning... but it was certianly an experience...

**LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Use at your own risk. Pink Dandelion is not responsible for any personal injury, mental or physical, nor humiliation, resulting from the application of these methods in daily or extraordinary (or even slightly unusual) circumstances.

If I hadn't totally broken my counter a moment ago, I wouldn't have figured out the real problem! Apparently IndiGirl moved all her images, well the white background image was moved too, something I hadn't taken the time to figure out what was, so I hadn't set it up to pull from my own domain yet.

Well when I went back and pasted in the old code, her graphics location and all, the graphics weren't working, so I updated them to mine, and noticed/remembered the white.gif file that was still pulling from her server, the same file that plays a big role in how the counter fills.

*giddy*
I feel so smart now! ;-D

...Now I've REALLY killed it...

sister dear sister... HELP!!!

So a few days ago, all the sudden my indigirl counter sorta went:

*PTHBLAAFPTBB!!!*

you need the accompanying hand motions and facial expression to get the full experience, but I think you have the idea.

I don't know what's going on, the pink fills all the way with just a little white line where the pink should STOP... and no matter what I try it won't fix.

Grr. Computers are crazy.

I GOT A SNOWBOARD!!!!

YESSS!!!

so yeah, REI had a 'really sick' sale (that's snowboarder talk for FREAKIN' AWESOME!!) and I got a super-duper (that's me talk for FREAKIN' AWESOME!!) deal on a Salomon snow board and Salomon snowboard boots!! *HUGE GRIN*
Some people, have insinuated that bindings are also necessary equiptment for snowboarding! psh.

Bindings!? WE don't got no bindings!! We don't need no stinkin' BINDINGS!!

...hey who needs bindings when we have duct tape???

OK I'm kidding.
I've got a snipe bid pending on some pretty sweet bindings on eBay, so we'll see how that goes...

My snow board has robots on it... orange robots... with mohawks... ok.
the base graphic says Salo... ...omon (Saloomon?) with a big swooshyS between the Salo and the omon. ohyeah. I'm cool now. *best cocky 'gansta' look (which only ever recieves giggles [at best] from the peanut gallery)*

Yes, I'm still sick (and no, not in that cool snowboarder 'sick' [synonimous with 'awesome' or 'intense'] way), But the arrival of my snowboard suddenly made me feel magically better... for about 1 hour... and now, I think I'll take a nap (which is probably a very uncool thing for a snowboarder to do... but not too many snowboarders read my blog. So, shhh! don't tell)

I didn't know I had smilie faces here!

- oh yeah and BTW - that little smilie down there is NOT supposed to be smiling :-P

I'm sick

blah.

I've almost finished me tipless gloves though! (not blah)

I know I've neglected my blog the last bit, I've been really busy lately, and most of it on the computer... so I guess by time I get done with all that stuff I don't have time to post here...

Actually, I think I'm in the wrong song, because the weather outside was actually rather frightfull, but it didn't start out that way... and I was walking in it...

If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would be walking down a densly treed drive with mountains of snow on either side of me, being greeted by people we knew passing us on the street, throwing snow balls off the bridge into the river (and wondered if we could play poohsticks with snowballs instead if sticks), and chatting with my big sister like we were best friends, I would have wondered what they were on... but a few days ago I did just that.

We needed to go down to a little store near by and pick some stuff up, and my sister said "It's a nice day, and a hour or so before it'll get dark, lets walk!"

So we did.

We're walking a long and we noticed that the snow was picking up... eh no big deal, we'll keep walking... and then it picks up some more... and some more... and some more... we can walk! she said it's nice out! she said... humph... last time I listen to my sister ;-)

We started talked about what we'd do if we got stuck, we decided our knitting needles would be put to better use knitting with them (really fast to generate heat) rather than burning them, a fire made out of 10 DP sticks in size 10 and 3 wouldn't do us much good anyway. When we ran out of yarn we could wear what we knitted... or frog it and keep knitting fast, depending on which generated more heat.

We didn't need to put our plan into action though, we managed to make it out to the road fine, though the snow continued to pick up...

At one point a friend passed us on the road, stomped on his breaks, roll down his window and shouted "IT'S TOO COLD TO BE OUT WALKING!". Thank you, we didn't notice :-P

In the end we made it (though somewhat drippy when once we thawed), and got something to drink, and some chips and sat down for a few minutes before calling the house to get someone to pick us up, bytime we made it there through the snow it was getting dark. We Rented a DVD (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - which actually turned out much better than I had hoped btw) and got our ride home...

"...Nothing contained in this agreement limits Adobe's liability to you in the event of death or personal injury resulting from Adobe's negligence..."

WHAT do they think consumers will be doing with this graphics software?!

I give you...

...*drum roll*...

...THE POMATOMUS(ES)!!!

and a close up of the spiffy scallop pattern:

I think I should have had harsher lighting at a side angle to get a better picture of the pattern, but alas, I did not.

I was happily knitting along, and decided that this yarn, though it's varigated, didn't seem to hold to a pattern, so for the next sock I decided to not worry about it and just start wherever... either I was wrong... or the yarn changed (I like to blame the yarn, cause I'm never wrong, and if I were here, it would brake my spotless record)

Notice that zig that's zagging over there on the left sock?? *glare*

and it gets worse...

I know I've seen that Z somewhere... in a logo or something, but I can't place where...

Anybody else recognize this Z?! There's some sort of subliminal message going on there... *suspicious*

Mere coincidence you say? I think not!!

I went to post pomatomus pics, and as I was about one paragraph from finishing the post... my browser crashed...

*dark glare*

I've now finished 1 of the fingerless gloves! I ought to post a picture of that too

blllaaaaah I'm behind!