Other Blog Round-Up

I have so many things to tell you all: how we've been snowed in since Sunday; how I'm a terrible mother; the saga of my car door; the rest of Thanksgiving; my review of Greywalker; the state of various knitting projects. But, honestly, I'm tired and not feeling terribly witty, so all you get today is a discussion of things I saw on other blogs.

Teresa over at Making Light started out by linking to a few of Franklin's funny posts, and the discussion soon fragmented into bad crochet patterns, good crochet patterns, knitting needles as weapons, spinning silk, Irish dancing, Vegas showgirls, and the TSA. The upshot of it all is that I think I need to learn nalbinding.

The Yarn Harlot has a funny story that got a lot less funny as I read through the comments. I'm amazed at how much anger is directed at this woman who is clearly ill. Yes, the story was funny. Stephanie knows how to tell 'em. But would people be saying the things they're saying in the comments if the woman had been young and skinny? They're punishing her not only for being mentally unbalanced, but also for having the temerity to announce to the world that she has (gasp!) a body, and doesn't plan to hide it despite being too old/too fat/too far from the norm.

I admit, I've made fun of people; right here on this very blog, even. But I don't think I've done so with the sort of mean-spiritedness that I'm seeing over there in the comments. It seems to me that the woman needs psychiatric help, and the story is far more sad, than funny. Maybe I'm asking too much, but shouldn't knitters be a more tolerant bunch?

*edit* I'm not saying that Stephanie's initial post was cruel; it really had a feel of "here's something strange that happened to me." What got to me was how quickly the comments section turned into a lynch mob.

Fail Better

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

As you may have noticed, that posting every day thing? Total bust. I must confess, the novel-writing is scarcely going better. What does it say about me, that I could keep it up through ferG-d'ssake pneumonia, but my kid gets a cold, and I go all to pieces? To be fair, it's been a pretty bad cold: he was so congested he was gagging and vomiting. Ew. Kids are gross. But I guess that's why they're cute, huh?

And then there was the holiday, and the travelling, and the visiting, and the eating, and, quite frankly, you people just fell to the bottom of the list. Now, don't be like that. I love you. Really, I do. And I think we're all better people for this time apart. There is such a thing as too much togetherness, after all. I think it would be a very good thing if you learned to snark all on your own, without relying on me.

But I'm back! Absence makes the heart etc.

We went down to Portland for the whirlwind tour of parents over Thanksgiving: two days with my dad, two days out on the farm, and a stop at Blogless Zach's parents' on the way home. If you know me, you'll understand the tangled familial obligations there. If you don't know me, you probably won't stay interested long enough to sort it all out, so just call them all parents and move along.

Adam learned all about cats at my father's house, where he tormented Jack, the world's most tolerant individual, who deserves turkey giblets for the rest of his life after putting up with my kid. I won't be so optimistic as to say that he learned how to be gentle with the kitty, but he definitely made a start. At least he's not still running away as soon as the beasties look at him. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I haven't yet decided.

Out on the farm he was wary of the ponies, and afraid of the tractor (wait 'til he figures out the electric fence!). By far, the biggest hit there was Sadie, the Welsh Terrier. She's about the same size as Adam, and has enough energy for three of him. They had to be separated because of her habit of jumping on people and licking them until they beg for mercy, which was a great disappointment to both parties. I think the most fun Adam had the whole weekend was playing with Sadie through the French doors - she would jump up on one, then switch tot he other and wait for him to follow. Repeat ad nauseum.

I was also going to talk about snow days and knitting progress, but I think that's enough for now. Adam just woke up and can't decide what's pissing him off most, so I should go be a patient and consoling mother.

Speaking of Marketing Savvy

Matt read somewhere that a major oil company (or possibly several? I was a little unclear) is contracting with the marketing firm responsible for Got Milk? and Beef. It's what's for dinner. to improve their image. I'm sure their tagline will be every bit as snappy, but I can't help wondering which angle they'll take.

Because I'm such a helpful sort of girl, I'd like to offer up my own suggestions. Free of charge, even; we all know how the oil companies need our support, poor dears.

Big Oil: A lot quieter about our blatant racism these days.

If you're not paying $3/gallon, the terrorists have already won.

Big Oil: Doing our part to control the Arctic wildlife populations.

And my personal favorite:

Big Oil: Totally not involved in the Holocaust.

Pro/Con

I'm coming a little late to the party, but I just discovered that a small Hebridean island (population: 9 adults; 6 children) is asking for settlers.

That doesn't sound right. It's not as though it's the untamed wilderness, after all. They want a few people to move in, in any case.

One of the two available houses is billed as being perfect for a bed & breakfast. For some reason, this set my little heart a-pitter-patter. I can't even explain why; I just had this sense of "Wow, want!" I've always considered myself to be a fairly urban girl, but there's something appealing about the complete opposite of city life. It probably has something to do with living out in the not-quite-suburbs, and feeling that we're neither one thing nor the other.

It's a moot point, anyway, as I'll never get Matt to agree, and the competition seems to be fierce, but, dammit, this is my blog, so I'm going to play Let's Pretend and list the good and the bad. 'Cause, hey, lists never get old.

Reasons to Move to Canna

• I could shoo Adam out of the house to play, and be pretty confident that he'd be just fine: no busy streets, no unsolved kidnappings, no bad parts of town.


• In a community that small, you're pretty much an integral part by default. No more feeling like I'm someone who lives in a house and goes to a job without any real connection to place or people (the classic It's a Wonderful Life angst).


• No daily commute.


• Hell, let's just say it again: No daily commute.


• See that bit where they raise a lot of sheep? Sheep have wool, which can be spun into yarn and knitted. Hmmm, I'll need a drum carder.


• In a climate like that, people would actually wear knitted goods.


• I like to cook for a good-sized crowd.


• I like to cook.


• Whatever else I may say about my job, it's given me marketing savvy and a lot of contacts in the hospitality industry.


• Ideal place for writing.


• Self-employment has its appeal.


• The cost of living can't be terribly high.


• The house is too small for us; we've been tossing around the idea of moving anyway. (Just go with it.)

Reasons Not to Move to Canna

• If you have argument with your neighbors, it's going to be very hard to avoid them.


• It contains a large amount of nature. Nature contains bugs.


• Matt might make me hike.


• Utter lack of coffee shops, movie theatres, PurlyGirls, bars.


• Even if the neighbors do agree to babysit, you can't actually get away from the kid.


• The Jewish community is me (and Adam, who's not much help at remembering the words).


• All that neo-luddite pioneer stuff sounds interesting in theory, but I've never actually tried it.


• Very large sheep shit:person ratio.


• If we move back to an actual city, would our heads all explode?


• Netflix will probably take forever to deliver.


• My DVD player won't work anyway.


• Sea air makes my hair even bigger.


• House must be rented from National Trust - no equity.


• Lots of legal red tape for immigration.


• All of my books will be full of misspellings the minute I cross the border, and locals will make fun of my pronunciation.

Convalescence

I really can't believe how much the pneumonia has kicked my ass. On Saturday, I spent a couple hours sitting at Third Place Books, and then went out to dinner, and bam - I had to sleep nearly all of Sunday to recover.

I think I am recovering, though. I don't hear the bubbly sounds in my lungs when I breathe anymore, and last night I made it out to PurlyGirls. I made some good progress on the second yellow sock (which Adam will not be wearing cross-gartered), and showed off the all-finished-but-for-the-button pink stripey bag that I haven't taken a picture of yet. Suggestions were offered to close up the top a bit, since it felted quite a bit more up-and-down-wise than around-wise. Counter-proposals were submitted, wherein I only use it to carry several baguettes.

Photos someday soon, really.

Because I Know You've All Been Waiting

I'll be reading the following for the Winter Reading Challenge:

• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco


• Viriconium by M John Harrison


• Rashi's Daughters: Joheved by Maggie Anton


• Greywalker by Kat Richardson


• Embers by Sandor Marai

I should mention that I'm a fairly quick reader under normal circumstances, but since Adam showed up, circumstances have been anything but normal. To be honest, I'm a little concerned about my ability to finish this, particularly since I feel like I've really got something good with my NaNoWriMo novel, and I'd like to devote the next few months to it. (Yes, that's antithetical to the spirit of NaNoWriMo, but do remember, I'm multi-tasking, and I want it to be very good when I send it in for Viable Paradise.)

But then, as the ancient sages said, Tis better to have signed up and failed to read five novels than to leave them still atop the teetering "to be read" pile until the whole damned thing falls on your head while you sleep.

Or something like that.

If at First You Don't Succeed

I've been such a rousing success at Knit the Classics, what with finishing half a book, and no projects, that I thought I'd join another one of these virtual book groups. Twice the commitment, half the guilt!

I ran across the From the Stacks Winter Reading Challenge on Teabird's blog, and I'll be dutifully signing up just as soon as I pick my five books. The focus is on plowing your way through the TBR pile, rather than buying new books, so I think it will be a good complement to my stash knitting.

I vow to be the antithesis of consumerism this Non-Denominational Winter Gift-Giving Holiday (NDWGGH)! I will buy no yarn! I will buy no books! I will buy nothing for any of you people! I will fight no more forever!

Erm. 'Scuse me. Little carried away.

And I think I'm going to get Adam a train set, actually.

But still, that no-buying-frenzy thing? That's pretty good.

I Hope It's Not My Writing...

1385 words (total, not written today), and I've completely restructured the heroine's personality. And made her a duchess. Because I can. (Well, the poor kid, I'm about to turn her entire world upside down - the least I can do is give her some pretty dresses and a decent brain to face the nasty world I'm making for her*.)

I spent most of today asleep; I must have tried to do too much yesterday. Matt has been wonderful, doing all the kid-wrangling lately. I can't believe how much this thing has kicked my ass.

* I had meant for her to have a decent brain right from the start: nobody wants to read about a moron, and even if they do, I don't want to write about one. She was turning out to be kind of an idiot, though, as I wrote her. But then, what can you really tell about a person in less than 1,000 words?

Slow Progress

Progress is slow on several fronts.

I'm beginning to feel better, but I still get tired very easily. I went out for a few hours to write today, and had to come home and lie down. My cough is getting better - it still sounds awful, but it happens less often. I will finish the antibiotics tomorrow, and hopefully that will be enough.

I've written 782 words for NaNoWriMo. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I'm very pleased. I've been a little obsessed with this story; Whenever I have a spare moment I finesse the plot in my head. I'm very happy with where it's going; I just wish I had more energy to get it down on paper.

Last night was the first Parents' Night Out for the year, where you can drop your kid off at daycare and spend a few hours doing grown-up stuff. Matt and I had planned to go see The Prestige, but the timing was just perfectly wrong - the first half of our free hours fell during the dinner time movie black hole, and all the showings started up just slightly too late for us to get back and pick Adam up before the daycare closed.

We drove around a bit, trying to force the timimg to work out somehow, and then gave up and went for a nice dinner at a pub with pretensions, and dessert at the chocolate cafe.

Good G-d! A Plot?

Sadly, I cannot offer any Amazing Tales of True Workplace Stupidity today. I did go into the office this morning, for the first time all week, but only for four hours, and no one was so thoughtful as to say anything truly moronic in that time. Rest assured, I'll bring you idiocy a-plenty next week.

I had pretty much counted myself out of NaNoWriMo. Between having no idea what to write about, and my fun brush with the plague, I'm currently sitting at nearly 17,000 words in the hole. That's a lot of catching up to do, even for a healthy person, and I'm still only good for three hours or so before I need a nap.

I figured I'd be a spectacular failure this year, and make a better start of it next time, when Adam can entertain himself for longer stretches. That knocks my extra responsibilities for the month down to blogging, and that I can handle.

Ha.

About an hour ago, an entire plot showed up uninvited and unlooked-for. It smacked me upside the head and started suggesting characters. It settled in. It kicked it's feet up. It's leaving a fully-formed, plot-sized butt print in my mental sofa.

This thing fits all the requirements. Beginning, middle, and end? Check. Speculative fiction? Check. Sounds fun to write? Check, check, and check. It's got secrets, betrayal, revenge, ass-kicking girls, handsome rakes, despicable villains, probably some thrilling duels - okay, it's a little thin on subplots right now, but they'll show up. And, really, I only need 10,000 words for a Viable Paradise application, and that's an achievable goal, even for a convalescent, right?

Sigh. So much for rest and recovery. The muses do have odd senses of humor. Cheers, ladies.

Second Opinion

Or, Why I Love My Doctor

I saw my regular doctor today. He's a family practitioner, so, in fact, Adam and I both saw him. Adam was there for his fifteen-month stab in the thigh, referred to in polite circles as DTaP. I was there to follow up after my appointment from yesterday, which, frankly, is pretty hazy. The documentation the clinic sent over was sparse, and when Dr. Teddy Bear (not his real name. I know, shocker, huh?) asked me for details, I was a little embarrassed to realise I couldn't give them. I guess I was loopier than I thought yesterday.

In any case the verdict is that Adam has a garden-variety cold, and so received his stab as planned, which he accompanied with gusty wails, and promptly forgot about as soon as it was over. Then he went back to flirting with the nurses.

I, on the other hand, have been deemed to have, not bronchitis, but pneumonia. Umm, yay? The treatment is the same either way, though Dr. Teddy Bear doesn't love the particular antibiotic the clinic put me on; he says it doesn't always work. The upside is that pneumonia is far less communicable, so my visions of Adam in the hospital on a ventilator are much quiter and less frequent.

DTB is keeping a close eye on me, since he doesn't trust my antibiotic. He told me to call him Saturday morning anf let him know how I'm doing, and to page him if I start feeling worse. You see why I love this guy? Oh, I know, we had that period of estrangement when I was flirting with the high-risk perinatal doctors, but really, I think we both knew that it was temporary. It was a growth experience for both of us, and I really think we're better people, and able to connect more--

I mean, I really like my doctor.

Walk-In Clinics & Whistles

I gave in and went to the walk-in clinic today. It was quite an adventure, since I was loopy and probably shouldn't have been driving, and once I got there I had to keep interrupting my list of symptoms with coughing fits. But the nurse was nice, and patient, and had plenty of tissue.

Is it flu, you ask? No. No it is not. I have bronchitis, and possibly just a wee touch of pneumonia. And no I also have antibiotics and an inhaler that scores very well on the helping-me-breathe scale, and abysmally on the tasting-even-kinda-okay scale.

Thanks to all who sent good wishes; I'm still a little loopy, but definitely on the mend. Adam and I go to see our regular doctor tomorrow, so we'll make sure he doesn't have anything nasty (I don't think so, but I'll feel better once someone who paid an extraordinary amount of money for school agrees with me), and have the doc listen to my lungs and give his opinion.

---

Our teakettle has no whistle. I really don't think that's appropriate; I mean, how am I supposed to know that my water's boiling when I'm in the other room watching The Two Towers if the damn thing doesn't whistle? To be fair, it does have a really stellar leak, and a tendency to rust if you leave water in it, so I suppose I shouldn't complain: it's full of features.

I'll be running in 2008 on a pro-whistle platform; I hope I can count on your vote.

Civic Duty

And today we vote.

Jim MacDonald put it quite well, I think. I've always been a little uncomfortable with the people who claim to "vote their conscience." It's a fine idea, and I'd love it if we could all vote for the most honest, upstanding candidate, but it simply isn't practical. It's an idealistic outlook, and our electoral system is far from ideal.

Third party candidates and write-in candidates are not viable alternatives. Yes, sometimes they win; more often, they don't. If you think you're making a statement by refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils, think again. You can't ignore the rules of the system and still expect that your voice will be heard and counted, and the system is decidely two-party.

Look at it another way: the goverment is set up to function as a system of interdependent parts. It goes beyond the three branch/check-and-balance stuff you learned in civics - your governor can appoint a new congressperson if the elected one gets eaten by wild giraffes. All of a sudden the third-party governor who didn't matter because they didn't tip the balance of power in congress - well, can you be sure they'll tip the balance of power the way you would have?

It's all very well to be cool and independent and refuse to buy into the mainstram when your fifteen. By the time you're old enough to vote, you're old enough to face facts, and the fact is, our system favors two major parties. Bite the bullet and pick one.

Anyway, go read better analyses on Making Light, because I'm sick and not thinking too clearly, and Blogger has already eaten this post once.

Still Sick

Updates as warranted.

Flu Shots, Feh

I cannot go to school today
Said little Peggy-Ann McKay

I'm sick.

I suppose it must be flu, rather than a cold, since it's not following my normal cold pattern. Besides, I think I'm running a fever, and doesn't that mean flu?

No fair. I got the shot and everything.

[Whining about symptoms, blah, blah, blah, headache, blah]

Everything's all fuzzy around the edges today, though whether that's the bug or the cold medicine, I couldn't say. I suspect I shouldn't have driven to get coffee, since my reactions are definitely slower than normal. The coffee didn't even taste very good, really.

At the moment I'm finding knitting far too complex for my little brain. I'm also noticing that I can't seem to type properly; please excuse any typos I didn't catch.

I read over my last several entries, and I think I need to read something that's neither British nor polite until my normal speech patterns come back.

Back to bed for me. Hopefully there will be a more exciting update tomorrow.

*Edit* I just woke up to a sparkly noise, kind of like when Samantha wiggles her nose, except I can't remember whether that's really the noise that happened when Samantha wiggled her nose. It's certainly the noise that should have happened when Samantha wiggled her nose. No idea what it actually was, in any case. If any of you get a call from me saying that a six-foot-tall lizard is chasing me and I'm going to take off all my clothes and stand in the middle of the backyard so he won't see me, please just chalk it up to illness.

Mysteries and Oddities

I've been devouring Agatha Christie lately.

I picked up the Miss Marple Omnibus on my last trip to Powell's, but I only got around to starting it a couple of weeks ago. It has four novels (a rather sorry omnibus, really, if you ask me): A Caribbean Mystery, A Pocket Full of Rye, The Mirror Crack'd, and They Do it with Mirrors. I'm about halfway through the last one.

I feel like I did read a lot of her books back in high school, and I know I've watched several adaptations on Mystery, but the only one of these that I remembered was The Mirror Crack'd. It was still enjoyable to read, since I'd definitely only seen the television adaptation, and I'd forgotten most of the details anyway, but it's true that mysteries don't generally stand up to repeat readings; I wasn't nearly as anxious to see how it came out as I had been with the others (I'm currently tearing myself away from the book to post this).

Christie's novels are cozy mysteries, as opposed to hard-boiled detective stories: whodunits that feature an ameteur detective, and are generally quite civilized, and all the violence happens offstage. There are probably other traits that I'm forgetting. The problem is, though, that they're still mysteries. One gets the feeling that a cozy mystery ought to be read in an armchair with a cup of hot tea, and maybe a cat curled up nearby, but maintaining that feel is really impossible with a well-written mystery. Until you've reached the end, there's always a murderer on the loose, and you can't simply relax into an armchair, you have to do your part to find out who it is.

Or maybe that's just me.

It's possible, of course, that all the sturm und drang has more to do with me trying to be smarter than the author (or at least the detective) and figure things out before the big reveal. I'm ashamed to say I rarely manage it. I guess I'm not such a smart cookie after all.

Links, with Limited Commentary

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

I like pie (charts)

Neil Gaiman linked to this Rudyard Kipling poem, which I'd completely forgotten about. It's eerie and unsettling, and it puts me in mind just a bit of the Buffy episode Hush, which was also eerie and unsettling. I consider that a favorable comparison in both directions.

A discussion of Amazon's user reviews.

Idiot Co-Worker Round-Up

Let me start by saying that I don’t have my own office. I share a large space (not quite a cube, but not exactly an office; we have a door, but glass walls) with two other people, and room for one more, if we move the printer. Some days, this is irritating (I’m a manager, after all!), but I’m mostly accustomed to it. What it does afford me is prime eavesdropping opportunity.

Faux Brit J
Terribly hard done by, and making certain the world knows it.

J’s job involves occasionally taking incoming calls from clients. Note the word ‘occasionally.’ And yet, J is always on the phone, and as soon as the picks it up, her voice goes up several decibels, and she adopts a terrible fake British accent. Personal call, business call, it doesn’t matter; out comes The Voice.

J’s circle of friends must be huge, because she tells the same story several times a day, and has for the five months she’s been here. It’s a tale of adversity and triumph, in which J’s Evil Former Employer let her go in favor of Another Woman. And only two weeks later (two weeks!), Other Woman left Evil Former Employer for Fabulous Job, and, hahaha, didn’t EFE regret their hasty decision now? Oh, they missed J once she was gone, yes they did.

J’s friends also serve as vital instruments in the execution of her duties. Specifically, she has to call several of them after each legitimate business call to deconstruct the conversation. There are some amazing things that come out of these calls, but by far my favorite has been today’s “New Yorkers are just nasty people!”

You know, because the client suggested that she should actually do her job properly and efficiently.

SweetnSycophantic L
In her natural habitat, L is dressed as Snow White and conversing with all her woodland friends.

L bounced around the company a bit, working as a temp for various departments before being hired on full-time in her current position. Nothing wrong with that, I did a bit of it myself (although, looking back, I wonder why I was so very determined to work here. Well, in fact, I know the reason, but some secrets should stay buried.). L, however, seems to have taken away from the experience the lesson that she must be very, very grateful to have any job at all. She manages to combine an already saccharine personality with the sort of sycophantic toadyism and favor-currying that makes all right-thinking people gag.

Plus, she uses emphatic quote marks in every. Single. Email.

Really, it’s best if you see it in her own words:

I have a prefered [client] who is inquiring about “definitions”... Please see an excerp from the following email:

[Excerpt from client’s initial email]

I don't know the answer to this and need to be educated on this myself. I eagerly await any wisdom you may be able to impart.

Ooh, this is fun! Maybe I'll make it a Friday feature.

NaNo Update

Word Count: 0
Plot: Non-existant
Characters: 2, broadly-typed but not terribly fleshed out; currently nameless, the poor things
Setting: Undecided; default Victorian London setting seems increasingly likely
Word Debt: 4167
Non-Writing Activities of Great Importance:
Work
Sleep
Child Care
Blogging
Commute
Spinning Group
Knitting
List-Making
Calling Diverse Family
Emailing
Using Up Dodgey Vegetables
Vacuuming
Laundry
Folding Laundry
Re-Folding Laundry Because It Looks a Bit Sloppy
Reading
More Coffee
Ignoring Halloween Candy
Watching The Vicar of Dibley
Fixing Song Titles in iTunes
Making NaNo Playlist
Synching iPod
Backing Up Laptop

United We Drip Into the Utility Sink

Yesterday, I taught myself Navajo plying. I'm not sure I have it completely figured out, since I seem to have lumpy, loopy bits where the folds happen, but it certainly is fun. And fast! A bobbin that took me hours to fill is plied up in twenty minutes. I did have some problems with treadling too fast - I can slow down my feet and speed up my hands while I'm spinning singles, but I have trouble with it when I'm plying. It probably didn't help that I had Liz Phair playing in the background.

It all started because I wanted to spin, but all my bobbins were full. I've been periodically winding off the singles that came with the wheel, but I'm getting to the point where everything on the bobbins is mine, and I'm not so interested in balling up my own spinning to languish in the bottom of a bag. I didn't have two bobbins with the same singles, though, and none of my mismatched singles would have worked well together. So, I finally sat down and watched the Navajo plying video until I understood it properly. The final sentence in the description was what brought it all together in my head: "This technique is similar to chaining stitches in crochet." I'm not the world's best crocheter by a long shot, but chain stitches? I totally get chain stitches.

I started with the yarn I'd spun up in my class* on Saturday. It was something of a mish-mash: mostly white Coopworth, a little bit of brown Coopworth, and some random bits of fluff that I pulled out of my bobbin bag when Shirley was talking and I'd run out of everythign else. Since it was my first attempt, I didn't really take advantage of the plying method for preserving the color runs (generally the point, as I understand it), so I lost some of the nice striping effects I'd gotten, which I'm a little sad about. But, easy come, easy go. I'll probably make some wrist-warmers with it; I've been absolutely freezing lately.

I had fun with the first bobbin, so I decided to ply the rest of the Welsh Dark that I used to learn on. This bobbin was a bit more even than the first one (which I had already plied together with the mysterious soft grey stuff), but still pretty lumpy. I started plying, but it kept getting all twisted up and refusing to feed onto the bobbin. It tooke me longer than I care to admit to realise that I'd spun this bobbin the opposite direction of the way I usually do. Things evened out a bit once I got going the right direction, but it will never be a pretty skein. I'm not sure what I'll do with it.

One thing I learned is that I absolutely need a niddy-noddy. I tried skeining the yarn around my hand and elbow, but it didn't work too well. I think there will definitely be a purchase in the near future. Plus, who doesn't love the opportunity to say "niddy-noddy"?

I gave both skeins a bath and hung them over the utility sink to dry, and there they both are even as I type this. They've dried, but the laundry room still smells vaguely of sheep. I think it's quite nice, but the other members of my household don't seem as sure about that.

Under the Wire

9:28 PM PST - Blogger finally lets me publish after locking me out all afternoon. If I'm a NaBloPoMo failure because of Blogger sucking this month, I'm so switching to Movable Type.

Cute as an Undead Button

Adam learns the true meaning of Halloween.

*I just noticed that Matt took out the red-eye in this picture. Damn!

A Plea for Sanity & Good Taste ...

... In Halloween radio broadcasting:

For the love of all that's holy, or even unholy, quit playing Monster Mash!

Trust me, novelty songs simply don't wear well. Halloween may be the time for zombies to claw their way out of their shallow graves, but please, please, let this one stay dead. And while we're at it, would someone please drive a stake through the heart of Thriller?

As a public service, I've compiled the following non-sucktastic Halloween playlist. DJs of the world, I implore you to memorize it.

Sheena's in a Goth Gang - The Cramps
I'm the Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised) - Redneck Girlfriend
This Corrosion - Sisters of Mercy
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
Superhero - Ani DiFranco
Intergalactic - The Beastie Boys
Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying - Belle & Sebastian
Life on Mars - David Bowie
The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Damiels Band or Primus
Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde
The Thing that Only Eats Hippies - The Dead Milkmen
Black Celebration - Depeche Mode
Sugar Daddy - Hedwig
Sister Midnight - Iggy Pop
Lust for Life - Iggy Pop
Ghost - Indigo Girls
Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
Red Right Hand - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
March of the Sinister Ducks
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Happy Phantom - Tori Amos
Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2

There. See how easy? It's all gonna be fine.