Happy Halloween

I'm quite sad David Tennant is going to be leaving Doctor Who, but that didn't stop me from making him into a decorative vegetable. (Template is from Pink Raygun.)

Happy Halloween, y'all.

Picture time!

I wasn't very good about taking pictures in North Dakota, but here are some things I saw:



My first view of North Dakota, from the train.



North Dakota has ridiculously courteous and patient drivers.



Trees.



Shadows.

And on the way back, I saw Minnesota:



Mutant albino squirrel.



A robot.



Republicans.



Really obvious street signs.

Ahh, finally back home...



Er, no, wait, that's in St. Paul. Not quite the UM I know and love.

Automatic FAIL

Want to lose an argument with a linguist? Here's some help, garnered from actual internet discussions:

"It's not a dialect difference. It's just wrong."

"Why can't people just pronounce it the way it's spelled?"

"Well, I've never heard anyone say that, so it's wrong."

"That's not what the dictionary says."

"That's not what my middle school English teacher said."

"People like YOU are the reason the English language is deteriorating."

"If it were anyone else, it might be dialect, but because I believe this person is stupid, it's just because they're stupid."

"That's not your dialect. You're just lazy."

Use of any of the above lines of reasoning is grounds for automatic FAIL. Using one of them seriously is grounds for a beat-down.

Coming home

Just a brief note: I have successfully found a way back home from North Dakota- though I'm afraid to type it, just in case I jinx it- and will hopefully not have crazy axe murderer for seatmate on the way back.

North Dakota is:

• flat
  
• full of unnaturally nice people
  
• crazy busy
  
• flat
  
• fun
  
• lacking in squirrels
  
• abundantly supplied with rabbits
  
• flat
  
• did I mention busy?
  
• and FLAT?

More when I have slept, rested, and done something other than school.

I shouldn't have to write this letter

Dear street guy,

No matter how not-drunk you are, no matter if you have kids my age, no matter how nice and sane and reasonable you seem to be, and no matter how much you like my haircut, running your hand through my hair without asking me is not acceptable. Ever.

Ew. I cannot take enough showers.

Most sincerely,
Me.

Fairy-tale endings

I love watching movies about gifted kids who start out with crummy parents and find their fairy-tale parents. Matilda. August Rush. They used to make me happy.

Now they just make me cry.

Close your eyes and think of England.

That's been my motto this week. The thing about taking a long trip is that you have to do things you've been putting off. Hard things. Boring things. Long things.

Stinky things.

But none of it is as bad as getting screwed over at the gas station these days. There comes a point when you have to say, To hell with the budget, I'm just going to have to fill up. And so you close your eyes and think of England.

Except, of course, gas prices- or rather, petrol prices- are even worse over there. If you've been paying attention on Ravelry, there's been a good amount of international petrol price wanking going on, with people on both sides of the pond and both sides of the border at each other's throats. Not pretty.

Besides, we should all be at the oil companies' throats instead, right?

Still, I'm not convinced that that lovely little isle ruled by the Queen has it as bad as they think. Their intercity busses may be inexpensive and infrequent, but at least they exist. And if you can walk to the grocery store, you're still doing better than I am. Plus, they've got free health care! That's, like, a quarter of my monthly budget that they don't have to pay for at all!

How did this turn into a gas rant? I love the British. They make great TV. And radio. And accents. But it's too late now to turn this post into anything else, as I have to go do more things with my eyes closed and my thoughts trained on England. I guess I'll just have to send this one out with apologies to the offended Brits. I love you guys.

Oh, and Mr. Tennant? The offer's still on the table.

David Tennant, will you marry me?

And talk to me in your sweet accent?

I don't have anything useful to say; I just had to see if it would work twice.

David Allen, will you marry me?

I am not, by nature, an organized person. I am a creative person. I make connections between things in all directions, not always in obvious ways. This means that while I like to categorize and organize and have structure, I am pretty bad at coming up with structure on my own, because I get overwhelmed by all the different ways it could be done.

Enter the eternally sexy David Allen. And by "sexy", I mean... balding middle-aged consultant in a suit. But any man- or woman, for that matter- who could come up with an organizational system that actually makes sense to me automatically earns the appellation "eternally sexy". It's a rule. Look it up.



I went out and splurged on this last night. It's moderately famous among geeky sorts, and I'd heard of it before but never really understood the concept. Turns out, it's this perfectly brilliant system for getting stuff out of your head, so you don't have to worry about it constantly.

I stayed up way late last night reading it, and by the time I was done with the second part, I was determined to set this system up for myself. So today was Implementation Day. I followed the rules, I worked through the flowchart, I got in touch with my inner office supply fetishist, and at the end of the day:



I have folders.



I have a calendar.



I have a workspace where I can do actual work. (My desk doesn't count, because the computer takes up the entire desktop).

And best of all, I got things done today. Lots of things. I made phone calls and sent emails and faxed in forms and put batteries in things and went to the library and changed the paraments and emptied (emptied!!!) both my email inboxes and even had time to do some knitting. Freakin' amazing.

I am a superhero of productivity.

I knew I had to get this into place before I leave for North Dakota, because the one thing that would have made college a million times better for me is the one thing I could never figure out: study skills. Up until college, school was so easy for me that I didn't have to schedule study time or plan to work on assignments before the night before. I never learned the sort of organizational and time-management tricks that were a matter of survival for most people before they got to university. It made my life miserable, but I could never figure out a better way.

Hooray for the people who can figure out better ways!

I predict this semester suddenly becomes a thousand times easier than any semester before.

Planning ahead

It's a skill I have in very limited quantities. Today I was subbing as a "media specialist", meaning "library front desk drone". I packed only my usual purse knitting, thinking that surely there would be books to check in and reshelve or something else library-ish to do, and an hour's worth of knitting was certainly more than enough to get me through the day.

WRONG.

By the end of my planning period, roughly halfway through the day, I was ready to graft the toe of the second Simple Seven sock. I always feel a little guilty when I knit while I'm working, but honestly, I checked out no more than ten books in the course of seven hours. There wasn't anything more work-relevant to do. The other front desk drone was reading a magazine (Vanity Fair, I think), so my time-killer was more productive than hers, or so I imagine. I got a wearable garment out of mine, at least.

The Simple Seven socks look like this:

Side view:

I'm not terribly impressed with them. The short row heel and toe left giant holes at the sides and don't even fit that well. I like the garter stitch effect, but I think I may be going back to the good ol' heel flap and wedge toe, which have never yet let me down.

I was a little disappointed in the TOFUtsies yarn, too. It tended to be a bit splitty, so I had to keep my eyes on my work at all times. Right now, I'm feeling the eye strain pretty bad. I can't wait for my new glasses to come in; I'm hoping they'll help with the headaches and eyestrain. Better lighting in the living room would probably do wonders as well.

These socks raise my WIPped into Shape total at 2 out of 8. I've got to get moving a bit faster on some of the other projects.

Dear Joe the Stalker,

Hi. It's me, the woman from Big Name Copy Store. Remember, the one you tried to walk home from work that one night, the one you kept staring at while she was working, the one whose manager told you, in essence, to perform physically impossible acts on yourself? The one who was enjoying her time at the library when you turned up?

I'm not screwing around any more. The police have your name and description, and buddy, they're on my side. And they are bigger and stronger than you.

Creep.

In closing, please go stick your bits in a clamp.

Absolutely no love under any circumstances, you perv,

Me

Doctor's orders

Compare, please, these two lists:

Doctor's List of Items to Avoid

• Citrus
  
• Raw vegetables
  
• Greasy or fatty foods
  
• Caffeine

Only Foods I Felt Like Eating This Week

• Oranges
  
• Baby carrots
  
• Peanut butter sandwiches
  
• Tea

The more I think about her list, the more my brain hurts. What, exactly, am I supposed to eat? Bananas and chicken broth? (Just the thought of chicken broth makes me want to urp. Yuck.)

So naturally, I picked up a pizza tonight. I feel better already.

Meet George.

This is George. He is my very first ball of handspun yarn. I am immensely proud of him.

I hope that he will now leave me alone so that I can actually get some knitting done.

Progress, regress, and progress in the wrong direction

The past few days have seemed to move very, very slowly, but at the same time it's incredible to me that the week is almost over.

I made some progress on WIPped into Shape Month. The first thing I did was finish the Boring Socks:

...which turned out to be a little short. I'm hoping they'll grow a little when they hit the water, but the last item I knit with this yarn (my HP house sweater) didn't grow at all. When it comes to knitting, I live in a near-permanent state of denial. Despite the sizing issues, this counts as my first finished object for the month.

I continued this trend by putting sleeves on the A-squared cardi. It was a big hit at the SnB last night; everyone got a chance to fondle the soft, soft alpaca and angora. I finished the second sleeve, but just barely: it was knitter vs. yarn in a race to the finish before I ran totally out. I have just enough of the main color left over to seam the underarms. Today I added the button bands, including my first ever buttonhole, which I'm not all that impressed with. There must be a neater way to make a buttonhole than cast off, cast on. At any rate, all that's left is to weave in the multitude of ends and add a button, so this cardi is very close to being finished.

I might have accomplished more on my WIP month goals except for a minor distraction that turned into a major time-suck: spinning. Now, I want to make clear at the outset that this was not my fault. I could have continued knitting happily all month were it not for Alice the Enabler, her drop spindle, and her English angora. (My idea of paradise now consists of rolling around naked in a pile of English angora. ...What?)

After Alice pushed her crack- er, spinning, on me last night, I remembered how much fun spinning was. And I remembered my drop spindle, and I remembered that big bag of lamb's wool in the seaweed-y colors, and three hours later:

A whole lot of single. My spinning is actually pretty consistent now, not thick and slubby like it was when I started. At some point, I'm going to have to figure out how to ply all this single, though, which is when I'll find out just how uneven my tension is. Ah, well. I'm learning a lot as I go.

And finally, some actual, practical, non-fiber progress. I had my first real interview with a Wycliffe rep yesterday! I'm starting the application process and taking my first real steps toward membership. It was exciting to sit down and look at plans and timelines and feel like my life was actually going somewhere.

The only real setback this week is, once again, this blasted cough I caught. It's back, it's mean, it's ugly, and this time it's actually starting to be painful. Warning to everyone: I'm back on the narcotics for the time being, drugged to the gills, falling asleep at completely inappropriate times, and with no filters between brain and mouth. Should be exciting.

I'm WIPped.

I had a fit of honesty last night. Well, increased honesty, anyway. I started photographing pictures of some WIPs for Ravelry, and I got carried away. By the end of the night, I had uploaded significant portions of my stash and nearly all of my WIPs, excluding only the ones I was really embarrassed about.

It was a bit of a shock when I was done. Remember that Yarn Harlot essay about when she decides to haul out all her WIPs and start finishing them? It was like that. I didn't find identical single socks the way she did, but it was pretty close. I found a pair of socks that only needs the second toe grafted. I found two pairs of mittens in progress. There were two sweaters roughly three-quarters done, and at least one more sweater I'm not admitting to and am planning to frog. There were more barely-started afghans than I could handle without the bracing influence of a strong beverage.

The end result? 16 WIPs in Ravelry, and at least five more I'm pretending I didn't see. This is probably some kind of a statement on my character, but I'm choosing to turn it into challenge:

WIPped into Shape Month

Purpose: To cut back on the number of WIPs in my yarn closet.

Goal: Cut my number of WIPs in half in one month (May 5 to June 5).

Strategy: I have my eye on these projects:


...which are all reasonably near completion. The list may change, though, since I have more socks and two pairs of mittens that would involve less work. The reason I'm not focussing on them right away is that I'm afraid knitting socks and sock-like things so much would make me really really crazy. I like socks, but not that much. I need a break from the monotony.

On the other hand, that's how I got into this mess in the first place.

Reward: Should I successfully complete half my WIPs during the month, I will allow myself to make a knitted coat. Possibly this one.

Now I'm off to tackle a WIP or three. I think I'll start with those Boring socks, which only needs the second toe grafted. That's, what, a 10 minute project? For 100 Knit Wars XP, I can handle that.

So... is she alive or isn't she?

I should know better than to expect to understand everything in a Japanese video game. If nothing else, I should have learned that from Katamari Damacy. But dang it, when I've spent hours and hours and hours of my life watching cut scenes and fighting the same impossible boss again and again, I want some closure at the end of a game. Did FF7 deliver that?

Um, not really.

I spend an hour fighting various incarnations of Sephiroth/Jenova, during which the sun goes supernova approximately 20 times, something I'm sure the astrophysicists would be surprised at. I've spent at least a year- or has it been two years?- playing this game on and off, which involved me playing up to the final boss twice. I've had my mind messed with, I've had to play though a scene where my character took a bath with, like, 20 other guys, I've cried at predictable moments. About the only thing I haven't done is raised or raced chocobos, at least not any more than I could help.

So here's what I want to know:

Is Aerith alive? Is she half-alive? Did she, in her dying moments, excrete her soul into a shiny ball that dropped into the planet's core, and is that what's alive? If Cloud really wanted to meet her in the Promised Land, shouldn't he just have let go at the edge of the cliff, so he could drop in and see his ain true love?

Also, Zach. What is the story with him? How much of Cloud is Cloud, and how much is Zach? If Zach was the cool soldier boy, how come Cloud turns out to be the one who defeats Sephiroth? What happened to Zach? And, since my characters seem to understand all this much better than I do, why don't they breathe a word of it to Zach's parents? I mean, that's just cruel.

Could someone please explain to me the difference, or relationship, between Holy, the Planet, and Lifestream? Which one is Aerith controlling from her semi-undead intraplanetary state?

Tifa? Seriously, Cloud ends up with Tifa? That would be like, like, like Harry ending up married to Luna. Wrong, wrong, wrong. (I just typed "wroung" three times in a row.)

I understand there are sequels to this game, including, I think, the movie Advent Children. Clearly, I am going to have to do some more research, because I'm coming out of this game with no clear sense of what happened in it.

Small things

First of all, I need to state that the contributor to Cast On #63, the one with my name, is not me. It's the curse of having a common name. I also have a crappy series of Christian women's fiction named after me.

I had a really great day at work today. The TA in the room told me that I was the best sub they've had all year, which made me feel just wonderful. Add to that the return of the MCY trolls, and I've been in a fabulous mood today.

I have knit like the wind this week, but I can't show you pictures, because so much of it is gift knitting. Once the gifts are distributed, though, the piccies will appear, so have patience (or brace yourself, depending on your blog tastes).

Now, just for a change of pace, I'm going to pull out some crochet and watch a few episodes of Jeeves and Wooster. Hugh Laurie, yummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It ain't your grandma's knitting.

The poor unfortunates who come into contact with me for any significant period of time soon find out that knitting has a culture all its own. And that culture isn't what you might expect from the stereotypes of knitters the big culture clings to. There are still grandmothers knitting scratchy things out of crappy acrylic, and there are still pregnant women knitting tiny booties and caps, but they're not the bulk of the knitting community.

How can you tell that knitters aren't as mild and sweet as Muggles think? Look at what they're knitting.

There are patterns out there that would make your grandma blush. Heck, some of them make me blush. Thongs, bras, pasties, and willy warmers are just the beginning. Today, for some reason, I keep running across patterns representing the male anatomy. Dishcloths. Purses. Chapstick cozies. Stuffed models. (British/Anglophile readers: you know what I meant.) Pillows with male bits poking out. I am deadly serious. I swear, I'm not looking for them.

And not only are there patterns, people actually make these things. Cruising through the finished objects at Ravelry, I just keep stumbling over them. The things are everywhere, apparently making up something like 2% of projects- which doesn't seem like much, unless you browse a few hundred patterns at a time.

As my poor Muggle housemate says every time I tell him about the exploits of assembled knitters, knitters have their own culture. It's weird. And this time, I can join him in saying, "I don't get it."

Using our powers for good

So, the thing is, I'm a linguist. Playing around with made-up languages is fun; I get that. But there's a sobering statistic that bothers me.

2,251 of the world's languages need a Bible and have none of it. Not a single verse.

On the other hand, there are at least partial translations of the Bible into:
Lolcat
Klingon
Pig Latin
Quenya (that's Elvish, for non-LotR fans)
D'ni (okay, I'm the guilty party here)

...and any number of other conlangs, probably. Think about all the translation power that's getting used up in wikis and forums across the net. Imagine what that could do, were it loosed on natural languages, ones that actually need translations.

The internet is a great place to see the power of lots of people to do little things that add up to big things, like Wikipedia or Knitters without Borders. I wonder, are there ways to loose this flood of power into the realm of Bible translation or literacy?

While I wonder about that, ponder this bit of good news:

"So liek teh Ceiling Cat lieks teh ppl lots and he sez 'Oh hai I givez u me only kitteh and ifs u beleevs in him u wont evr diez no moar, k?'"

Iz John 3:16, k?

It's finally spring!

Finally finally finally! It's spring outside! That means...

Cherry trees!



Flowers!



Bike cops!

Okay, I don't have a picture of the bike cops. Wish I did, though. They're yummy-licious.

The weather is beautiful, the windows are open, I'm wearing shorts, I have a positive balance in my bank account, all is right with the world. Any minute now, the Torchwood season finale will show up in the On Demand menu, and I'll be in about a perfect a condition as a person can be on this earth.

Happy Spring!

I iz on Harlot website?

Sort of accidentally, but hey, I still think it's cool! Look for the third picture from the bottom, and then look left.

Kaarina, the person whose picture this actually is, was my knitting buddy for the night. She's awesome and incredibly brave for a new knitter. That bag she's wearing? Her first project. Those socks she's holding? Her second. We worked on the heel flap together while we waited in line for a very long time. Then we went to the Busy Hands Afterparty and Yarn Sale, where I bought the yarn I'm struggling to save for North Dakota.

Things I have learned about knitting and the world.

• Stoplight knitting should be done on circs. There's less chance of needles falling out.
  
• If you come enough times to her book signings, the Yarn Harlot will recognize you.
  
• When on meds that cause weight gain (or, I suppose, pregnant), shawls are more practical to knit than sweaters.
  
• The best way to get family members to understand knitting is to get them to have a geeky craft of their own. Like woodturning.
  
• Strangely, the above rule does not seem to apply to scrapbookers.
  
• You can find a group on Ravelry for anything. Anything.
  
• And speaking of Ravelry? Endless source of entertainment.
  
• Being in the company of knitters makes me want to knit more.
  
• Make that "knit every waking hour".
  
• And several of the non-waking hours.
  
• Being sick is a great way to get more knitting done. Assuming the meds don't knock you out.
  
• If you ask the lys owner if she has more colors of that lovely and dirt-cheap laceweight, she'll pull out her entire stock to check without complaining.
  
• Some new knitters are really really brave. They are examples to us all.
  
• Lace knitting is the best knitting in the world.
  
• Yes, you can knit lace without a lifeline, but it's better not to tempt the knitting gods.
  
• Don't pull laceweight from the center of the ball. Just don't.
  
• It is totally normal to have yarn piled on every available surface of your room/house. Totally.
  
• It is also totally normal to knit while soaking in the tub.
  
• Knitting socks in public draws out the curious inner knitter in everyone around you.
  
• Having three lys's makes me really, really spoiled.
  
• Some lys's have better yarn selections than others.
  
• Give up looking for sock yarn at Meijer's. It ain't there.
  
• Everyone can knit the same pattern and their projects will still be totally unique.
  
• Before modifying a pattern, at least consider that the designer might have known what they were doing.
  

I will now continue to pretend that the last... *counts*... five months of blog silence never happened. Toodle-pip.