kmkat and her kneedles

Eye candy Friday: the random edition.

 

Carved ostrich eggs in store window, Cape Town, South Africa; December 2005.

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Thank you all for your help in finding someone to design the caduceus for the Christmas mitten! Lisa hooked me up with an amazing Canadian knitter (I know, that's redundant) who has already knit a prototype for me. Follow the link to her Ravelry page -- she has done amazing stuff.

I'm going to share the other resources that y'all offered me -- there are some really good ones.

From Ruth @ 5elementknitr: "...this woman does outstanding things with dishcloths and she has a whole medical category here. There's two caduceus...es - one at the top and one if you scroll down a bit. They are not cables just knit/purl and when I bought a design from her before, there's no charts, just row by row instructions." digknittydesigns

(Blogless) Berta in Texas sent me to Knitting Pattern Central for several dishcloths that have wings in their design. Several are by RaAnn Clegg, who clearly loves to create knit and purl designs and is very good at it.

KMK (she and I share the same initials) told me about the DNA helix scarf she had in medical school. A light bulb went on over my head. The mittens will be fraternal twins: the other one will have the DNA helix design on the back.

Helen offered to design for me, but she has several (amazing!) things OTN right now and wouldn't be able to get to it right away.

Thanks again -- you guys are the BEST!

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In addition to November being the month of NaNoBloMo and NaNoWriMo and Vestvembe, it is also Novembeard...

 

...in which Matthew is clearly participating.

He showed me another of his artistic creations, one which is in the header rotation over at MplsBikeLove.com.

 

Here's a closer look:

 

He and Maggie surprised me at 8:30 last night by showing up with a pumpkin pie cheesecake and saying, "No one should be alone on Thanksgiving." What a couple of sweeties they are.

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And now, in honor of Black Friday/National Buy Nothing Day, one last image:

Knitting in the news.

Boingboing led me to a nest of knitting stories over at BBC News. The stories are dated April 24, 2009; March 18, 2009; January 23, 2009; and June 27, 2007, respectively. I present, for your enjoyment, Knitting In The News!

"The model of Mersham, near Ashford, has been knitted by members of the village's 40-strong Afternoon Club over the past 23 years. The group has raised about £10,000 for their village hall by exhibiting it."

Story here.

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"A woman from Oxfordshire has started knitting sweaters for rescued battery hens* that have lost their feathers. Jane Blaine, of Eynsham, said when a friend first asked her to knit jumpers for chickens she thought it was a joke. Ms Blaine, who has previously made coats for dogs, said: "When I saw these poor battery hens without any feathers, I thought I'd give it a try."

Story and video here.

* Battery hens are laying hens that are kept in very small cages, typically only slightly larger than themselves, for their entire short lives. Read about them here.

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Story (no video) here.

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Story here.

And that completes today's episode of Knitting In The News. Purl on, fellow needlers!

Tuesday amusements.

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The ice is receding quickly.

 

We never managed to get our pontoon boat out of the lake last fall. It appears that our luck may hold and that any remaining ice will NOT be blown against it, thereby crushing it and depriving us of a boat.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed, 'kay?

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Any other Mac owners out there?

Macheist is selling this $900+ bundle of 14 programs for $39.95, 25% of which goes to ten specified charities, none of which are anti-gay or "pro-life". Even if you are not interested in all the apps, let me tell you about one in particular, WireTap: it allows you to record anything that is coming out of your speakers. If, for example, you find a song you like on YouTube, you can record it and import it to iTunes.

Not that I would ever do such a thing, since it might be a DRM offense; just sayin', is all.

Older Son had gotten that program free in December and told me about it when he was home at Christmas. When I tried to find it I discovered that the free version was gone and it would now cost me $39. So I regretfully gave up. Now I will have it, plus others that may be nice, plus I am giving a little to charity.

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Some more chuckles.

From Disapproving Rabbits:

 

Lolturtles:

A couple items StumbledUpon:

 

 

I found a great new site. Here are a couple recent examples:

 

And finally, a Hannibal look-alike:

Saturday stuff.

It is Saturday, right? I worked Monday through Wednesday this week (27 hours! more than the 23 required for half time!) and found myself telling people, "Have a good weekend!" all day on Wednesday. I bet that did NOT make me very popular with anyone. Sorry, world, it just seemed like Friday to me. Both Thursday and Friday felt like Saturday, and today feels like Sunday only better because I know tomorrow in not Monday.

Welcome to my world ;-)

Although I really need to talk about my February zero waste challenge results, I am not going to. I am going to show you fun stuff I found today, courtesy of StumbleUpon.

First, from Photoposts Blog (the best photos in the world:

   

 

Those knitted eggs are the creation of Little Cotton Rabbits. Go check out her blog and her greeting cards and her free patterns and her etsy shop.

And go check out Photoposts blog -- there are some amazing collections of photos (like this one).

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Are you a Mountain Dew fan? You may want to read this before you ingest another canful.

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Coffee mugs to die for:

 

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This next one made me scratch my head. Is it okay that Italians fell off? Were they pushed by the tourbus guides?

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And finally, for a series of seriously awesome photos, many of Twin Cities scenes, check out WaynePhotoGuy's "best of" Flickr series. Here is a quick sampler:

 

 

Random on Sunday.

New favorite: Fleet Foxes (the song, not the video).

#1 son turned me on to this group when he was home for Christmas; he copied over a bunch of music from his iTunes to mine. He has plenty to share:

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Of Bacon and Buccaneers: A Sandwich Tutorial (by Melanie).

Hilarious. Hint: it involves Johnny Depp/Captain Jack Sparrow. While you are over there you might want to check out the rest of the newly-opened Women's Colony.

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Some recent chuckles. I sent this to the rest of the family:

#1 son sent me this in return:

 

And more with the lolcats:

One last chuckle. Remember Thursday, the day The Storm Of The Century occurred? In the afternoon I emailed #2 son that I wouldn't be coming to Minneapolis; we had planned to go out for dinner that night. Our subsequent email exchange:

#2: Tell me about it, I was biking out at the Guthrie around noon when mother nature decided to take a big white poop on me.

me: LOL! Poor baby, I shouldn't laugh, but "...mother nature decided to take a big white poop on me" cracked me up.

#2: Hehe, it's alright, I'm here to entertain.

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Mutterings on a Sunday:

1. Pain :: in the butt.
2. Lego :: bricks.
3. Trooper :: Starship.
4. Flicker :: bird.
5. Character :: Disney.
6. Determined :: anxious.
7. Wing :: Bird.
8. Control :: Automatic.
9. Automatic :: transmission.
10. Yeah :: Oh, yeah.

Random Wednesday.

F is also for famous, which is how I am feeling right now. Check out my picture, right next to Dale-Harriet's, over at Franklin's post about his Yellow Dog photo shoot.

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We got some snow yesterday. This is around the corner and up the block from my house.

 

It was several inches of heavy, wet snow that made all the trees and bushes very pretty.

Some people are just too darned conscientious for their own good. These folks had already shoveled their sidewalk by 8 a.m. Don't they know it's gonna melt almost immediately? Or at least by June?

 

Across the street, Linus was looking a little... bedraggled.

 

Downtown, we have people to take care of these things. Wouldn't want anyone to get their Ferragamos wet.

  

Don't you love how I take pictures through the windshield? While driving. Not to worry; I didn't hit anything. Yet.

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Observed at the office:

 

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Last week I bought some daffodils from the the Cancer Society to brighten up my cube.

 

Knowing how fast they open, I thought it would be fun to photograph them every hour and make a blog post about it.

 

 

Hmm. It's a slow game.

 

Not a lot happening.

 

Okay, I guess they are opening. A little.

 

Ya wanna see the high-tech tripod I devised so I'd always get the same angle on the shot?

 

Upside-down glass on top of a pile of notepads, camera on top of the glass. Yeah, I know. I'm a genius.

 

Jumping ahead...

   

   

Did you notice how I put the digital clock in there now, so you can tell that an hour has elapsed? Genius, I tell you.

   

   

Yeah, I was getting bored, too. They seemed to be going pretty much directly from barely open to... dead.

 

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Matthew's joke. (You have to imagine him saying these things)

 

"So, what's happenin'? Where's the action tonight?"

(scuffle, scuffle, whisper, whisper)

 

"Police! You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say..." etc.

Stuff, random.

Y'know the sci-fi plot about the person who wakes up one day to discover that about a gazillion years have passed since s/he went to sleep? I had a moment like that on Friday when I opened Bloglines. I had something upwards of 500 unread posts. WTF? After I worked up the courage to start clicking on some of them I found that Bloglines had decided to  pick up random numbers of posts dating back to January. Whew. I'm still working my way through. Down to 95 81 83 at this moment.

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My favorite part of the parade yesterday was when an alert parent would spot me in my Shrek getup, nudge the 3-yo kidlet in front of her (it was almost always a mom doing the nudging; I guess the dads were more interested in the beer), and say, "Look, honey! It's Shrek!" And the kidlet would look and his or her little eyes would get big as saucers. Sweet.

Although I soon discovered that I should only go about one step toward the kidlet to wave. Any closer and said kidlet would be overcome with terror at the weird smiling lady in the box who was clearly intent on eating him/her.

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We had a bit of fun making the books, too.

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I took advantage of KnitPick's 40% off all books sale. Three books came to live at my house.

I don't knit lace. I have to intention to knit lace. Why I bought two books on lace knitting is beyond me. Clearly something is at work. Although I have to say that Victorian Lace Today is chock full of patterns, as many as one would normally find in two or three books.

"I don't understand why you did it, either."

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Back when I was a sophomore in college in the late 60s (yeah, I'm older than dirt) I discovered Leonard Cohen. Had one album of his and played it to death. Then I got into harder rock and sort of forgot about him. When Closing Time hit the charts circa 1992 I smiled in remembrance but that was all. Ditto Hallelujah.

And then I found this on Scalzi's blog*.

Next thing I knew I was in iTunes downloading The Essential Leonard Cohen, apparently the equivalent of a 2-CD set. I've been listening to it constantly ever since because:

1. I have always been a sucker for a gravelly bass voice. I also happen to love the singing of Leo "Goose Farts on a Foggy Day" Kottke.
2. Cohen's lyrics are so wonderfully poetic  and obscure...
3. ...that the occasional [satirically?] trite song totally cracks me up. Ain't No Cure for Love starts out with a sax riff that would have been happy in 1962, although the 1962 version probably would not have contained the line, "I need to see you naked / In your body and your thoughts."

This YouTube of LC singing Hallelujah is pretty good, too, if you ignore the fact that he looks like a half-dead cross between Jeff Goldblum and Dustin Hoffman. And how the chorus can't quite manage to keep hidden behind the set.

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Time to change the litter box.

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Also time to shut down the 'puter. It's all fire and brimstone outside, dark as 4 pm on a November afternoon, except for all the, like, green. Thunderstorms a'comin'...

TTFN!

* Erika led me there a while back.

That's "Her Grace" to you, peasant.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Grace Lady Kathryn the Arboreal of Studley Roger Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I'm off now to find Studley Roger. Don't wait up.

Sorry, I don't remember whose blog I found this on. If my memory returns I'll give credit. Until then you can just assume I found this through my own cleverness.

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#2 calls these his Short Bus Shoes.

Before and after.

Before:

After:

Can't tell the difference? Here's a hint:

I upgraded the memory in my Mac Mini from 256MB to 1GB. Now I can listen to iTunes while prepping a blog post in Firefox and uploading the photos to iPhoto and editing them in ImageWell. I could do it before, but I spent an inordinate amount of time gazing at the little spinning rainbow hamsters-are-pedaling-as-fast-as-they-can icon. The upgrade to Firefox 2 seems to have been the straw that broke the hamsters' backs.

If anyone wants a used but perfectly functional 184-pin DIMM thingy, let me know. I'd be happy to mail it to you gratis.

From what I can tell on the net, the same memory modules are used with Mac Mini G4 / 1.25 / 1.42 / 1.5 GHz processors, plus others. Modules like this one go for 99¢ to $9.99 US on eBay, so it's not like I giving away anything really valuable.

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Today's Funny Foto.

"Mmmmm! This disguise is so good they'll never guess who ate that steak that was defrosting on the counter."