FGFO part 4

Here we wrap up this year's fierce competition - but stay tuned, because I'm planning on posting something at the conclusion of this crazy odyssey (like all good reality TV shows have)!

FGFO part 3

Witness the athleticism and grace with which the competitors shovel watermelon into their faces. Truly a sight to behold.



Stay tuned for the inspiring conclusion, which will be posted soon!

FGFO halftime show: My birthday!

I turned 24 last week! That means I'm in my mid-twenties, and I have been warned by several people independently that it's all downhill from here and to prepare myself, as best as one can, for the dreaded quarter-life crisis which is surely lurking around every corner. So far so good, though.

I took my birthday totally off from school. Moved office hours, refused to come in for meetings, the whole shebang. I slept in (which was great) and then popped in Excalibur¹ and chopped my hair off. See?


I think it was time. The long hair was a hassle, what with it swallowing pocket change and clogging shower drains.

All in all, very successful, but more because people are awesome than that I gave myself a haircut. Aside from the lovely posts Jon wrote for me here and Dani wrote here, along with some mushful emails from Jennie and Tamar, Jen and Van came to visit! The best part? They made the foor of the gods - cashew cookies. Seriously, I beg them to make them every time I visit them.

Last but not least, my friend Cathleen surprised me with this:


There's a running joke in our research lab that I have a sketchy van that I use to lure unwitting naive data into which I then have my way with. This thing is going proudly on my desk forevermore.
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¹I just got this back from Tamar last month. For some reason over a year ago, a CD of her dad's musical stylings would up in the DVD case and vice versa. Basically, she highjacked it from me.

The saga continues

Yep, I'm serving you up another piping hot round of Fat Girl Face Off '08! Let me tell you, this one's a doozy, too. Chock full of twists and turns. Enjoy!



Don't be fooled though, anything can still happen! Stay tuned for the next installment to follow one fat girl on her epic journey to victory!

Not knitting, something much much better

Well, it's tangentially related I guess. It features lovely people that I've knit for. Anyway, I bring to you the FIRST INSTALLMENT OF FAT GIRL FACE OFF '08!! WOO!!

To those of you new to this annual celebration of the competitive spirit and love of eating, every year in Texas we hold a number of trials to determine who the fattest fat girl of the year is. It's phenomenal and we take it very seriously. I've mentioned it in passing before, but I'll catch you up real quick.

1st annual - Sam and Mandy compete, Sam reigns triumphant becoming the first winner of the face off.

2nd annual - Jon is allowed to compete as long as he is in drag and soundly trounces Sam and Mandy in a dark horse victory. As his coach¹, I was elated.

3rd annual - Jon grows overly fat and complacent, fails to listen to his coach, and is bested by Sam. I adopt Mandy as my protege.

4th annual - There were questions about Jon's eligibility to compete due to his apparent lack of coach (which were resolved when Leila's boyfriend Gio took on the challenge²) and weight loss, but when Sam and Mandy heard about the stewardess who kept telling Jon she couldn't give him anymore food he was allowed back in.

So here's Heat 1. I'll get the rest to you as soon as I'm able.



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¹I should say that I am indeed qualified for such a post, as I have actually won multiple eating contests. I am retired now.

²Gio didn't actually have to be pushed into coaching Jon at all. Hopefully Jon will drop by and tell y'all all about their bromance.

Updates abound!

Oh, knitting blog (and the odd reader who may or may not be perusing this), I have so many exciting things to tell you about! I'll keep it short and sweet though and get straight to the point, though.

1. Knitting News
I started the last of the need-to-be-knitted-ASAP socks of the sock queue, and I'm making pretty quick progress on them. They're Rhiannon knee socks that are destined for my sister's best friend's sister, Mandy, who is awesome, and very much deserving of such cool cabled knee socks.


I'm finding the cable charts way easier to memorize than the lace chart for the Millicent knee socks I just finished, even though the snaking side cables are worked on a different number of rows per repeat than the main cable which can be tricky to keep track of. More proof that cabling comes a lot more naturally to me than lace knitting, I guess.

2. Face News


Check it out! My super-fancy new glasses finally arrived! Aren't they awesome?? I've wanted a pair of white framed for awhile now, although I'm not really sure why. They fit well, I love them, and feel like it was totally worth it to splurge on literally the only thing I am guaranteed to wear every day for the foreseeable future.

The coolest thing about them, though? Definitely the back/top. See?


3. Best Souveneir Ever News
After hanging with Jon's family last week, we went to New York to visit Tamar and whisk her away to the house her family owns in the Hamptons (yes, THOSE Hamptons. How badass is that?). Our many adventures frolicking along the seashore will most likely be detailed by my esteemed guest blogger, Jon , so stay tuned for that. The reason I'm bringing this up is that at the beach house, we stumbled across the following book:


Quite a title, right? Intrigued, we starting reading it and found out that it was a Cold War era novel written in the most heavy handed style possible in the mid '60s. Let's just say that it really should have had a subtitle along the lines of "Or, Why ICBMs Totally Suck and Endanger the Free World." This just about sums up the tone of the book:


Seriously, though? Grab a copy of this if you ever get an oppurtunity. It has characters named Skipper and Pixie! And sometimes the characters use the term 'balls' as an exclamation of skepticism and/or disbelief, which Jon and I totally have adopted wholeheartedly. Here's an example of how best to use it, in case you're interested:

Me: You know you really need to watch your portion sizes.

Jon: My portion sizes are fine! I don't eat that much....

Me: Balls, man! In the last three hours, you've eat four sandwhiches! Unless you're in the Olympics, you can't possibly be that hungry.

Jon: Touche.

4. Cat News
Last but not least, I have a video for you! During his last trip to the vet, Fatty was deemed truly deserving of his nickname and we were warned that he was in danger of becoming diabetic if he gained much more weight. So we decided to take action! We've spent a good portion of the summer acclimating Fatty to a harness, and then holding him out on our landing, in order to prepare him to start being walked on a leash. Recently, we've made great progress on that front.

So close, and yet so far away

The millicent socks should be done, and technically, I guess, they are. Sadly, in their current state, they don't actually match. After finishing the lace cuff on the last one, I triumphantly started the lace cuff of its mate and merrily knitted away at it during the long drive from Michigan to Maryland.

Then, I ran out of yarn. No biggie, I thought to myself, I'll just knit as far as I can and unravel the first sock to match.

Yeah...I totally left it back in Michigan. Lame.

JUST IN: New glasses fulfill promise of knitting content

Yep, thanks to my newly competent corrective lenses, I have knitting news to share! I finished off the first of the Millicent knee socks I've been making for Sam. Take a gander:


I'm going away this week, visiting Jon's family and our dear dear friend Tamar (currently the Reader of the Current Time Period in Jarthen land), so many hours in the car should make finishing the other one no problem at all.

Actually, I think I'll be able to start the last of the pressing items on the Sock Queue of Doom on this trip, since there's actually not that much to do with Sam's sock. I knit the first up to the lace section and stopped because we were driving and I didn't bring the pattern (yay foresight!). so I started the second one and knit it all the way through it. All I really have to do, then, is work the foldover lace cuff for the first sock and weave in all the ends.

Proper eyewear = spike in awesome knitting content?

Only time will tell, but I'll go out on a limb and say, probably! So here's what happened: a few months ago, Jon broke my glasses (this has happened to several pairs already, but these were really awesomely sturdy glasses - they fell off a giant statue unscathed once! - so I had high hopes) which meant I had to start wearing my backup pair. What I didn't realize was that my backup pair sucked some major ass.

First, the glasses themselves didn't fit right at all. I have kind of a tiny head and the glasses fit weirdly about the ears and would fall off if I looked down. This lead to slight feelings of vertigo and much panicky clutching at handrails while walking down stairs like an old lady. But that's just a slightly annoying thing. The real problem was that the glasses, which had the same prescription as the ones that fell prey to Jon's clumsiness, were definitely not strong enough. I couldn't read powerpoints from the back of classrooms or recognize people on the street (which may or may not have lead to some awkwardness here and there). Lately, Jon and I have started playing this game whenever we're driving around:

Jon: "I can read that sign now, tell me when you can, ok?"

......10 second pause.......

Me: "Ok, I can kind of read it now."

Jon: "Oh man. That's sad."

Obviously, it's been clear for awhile that I need new glasses. Stands to reason, since I haven't actually gotten an eye exam since before I studied abroad which was...oh...about 5 years ago. I bet you're probably shaking your head right about now, tsk tsk-ing at me for not getting it done sooner. Well, for awhile it really wasn't that big a problem, more of a minor annoyance, and besides I'm not exactly rolling in cash what with being a grad student and all.

Then I won the NSF (YEAH!! WHAT, WHAT!!), which will effectively double what I'll be making next semester. Perfect, I thought, I will just get through the summer and get new glasses with my first paycheck! But then the eye strain from wearing crappy out-of-date glasses that fall off all the time started giving me migraines, so I caved. See?¹

These do not fall off. Oh, happy day!

HELP! The giant grandma/hipster prescription sunglasses are eating my face!

In any case, having appropriate corrective lenses should allow me to fitter, happier, more productive² knitter - or at least one with fewer headaches. I'm already making wicked fast progress on Sam's knee socks.
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¹The cute little rectangular black ones? Yeah those will eventually be bumped down to backup pair status. I totally splurged on a fantastic (and substantially more expensive) pair with better quality lenses, but they are backordered and won't arrive for awhile. I figured I'd earned it, what with being a badass researcher who won an NSF and all. Besides, it's close enough to my birthday to claim them as my birthday present to myself. Ah....rationalizations abound!

²The other really exciting thing that happened recently? I got to go see Radiohead!! I'm a massive Radiohead fan and I've never gotten the chance to see them (Jon has, though, and has been known to go on and on about how awesome they are live). We had to drive 3 hours for it, and I couldn't make out a damn thing happening on stage since I was still wearing the old crappy glasses, but it was amazing nonetheless. They totally played all the songs I wanted them too! It's as if the band and I had a weird half-blind mind-meld or something. Seriously, though, I was kind of a giddy little schoolgirl about the entire thing.

The Flight from Hell (and other tales of misadventure in modern travel)

History has not been kind to fascism with one major exception: their singular capacity to make mass transit function in a regular, timely fashion. A weekend or so ago the captain and I were actually feeling a certain amount of nostalgia for the iron-fisted rule of a punctual despot despite our avowed Trotskist proclivities as a result of a veritable comedy of travel related errors.

The adventure started innocently enough, but I guess that can be said about most disasterous travel experiences.

At least they got peanuts...

We made our way to the Detroit-Wayne International Airport without incident or delay via a well-traveled thoroughfare that was ominously free of traffic -- it was a friday evening after all, and the road should have been packed full of weary laborers returning to the pleasant respite that is Detroit's great suburban hinterland. This should have been our first indication that some powerful forces out of the ordinary way of things were acting upon our collective fate, but we were blissfully unaware and continued to the discount parking lot without heeding the ill-tidings of these unseasonably clear highways.

We arrived at the parking lot and were picked up by a surly, salt-of-the-earth sort of fellow who made several none-too-witty remarks about the Captain's (i.e. the respectable owner of this blog) ever-present pillow. Nevertheless, he was game enough to load our bags into the rear of his van, and we clamored in as well, making our fateful way towards the Northwest World Terminal, from which we were scheduled to depart.

Everything seemed to be going well: we were right on schedule to make it to the terminal with plenty of time to go through security, catch our flight, and perhaps even secure some sort of tasty snack. However, as we sat on the sticky, vinyl seats of the van, breathing in the faint aroma of fried fish my phone began to ring, sounding what would ultimately be the first toll of our journey's death knell.

It was my mother, and her voice came bearing bad news: our flight that day had been canceled. As we had just arrived at the airport, we elected to seek an audience with one of the friendly representatives of Northwest Airlines. After some valiant searching on the part of this brave gatekeeper of the skies, it was determined that our best option would be to reschedule our flight for one that left the subsequent day, and had a layover in scenic Memphis.

So, while the Captain kept a steady eye on our belongings, I rendezvoused with our surly chauffeur, who took me with great expedition back to our car in the bargain lot. After paying for a full day's parking, I picked the Captain up at the terminal, and we drove home having expended a few hours and several dollars, but with our faith in the righteousness of our mission unshaken.

Day 2

After a much needed rest (the two of us have both been operating considerably below the doctor recommended threshold of restedness lately), we again succeeded in driving to the airport in a timely fashion, finding a parking spot in the discount lot, and being ferried to the terminal by a (different) curmudgeon.

This time around we actually checked in, made it through security and boarded a flight. We had the additional pleasure of being checked in by a delightful middle-aged woman by the name of Peaches.

Our flight to Memphis was as one expects flights to Memphis to be -- nasty, brutish and populated by an inordinate number of whiny children -- but one expects such things, so we weren't sorely tried. The flight went smoothly, and featured the traditional selection of in-flight beverage choices.

If there were any evil omens in the skies of Tennessee that day, we were blissfully unaware of them, as we disembarked from our plane in the humid warmth of Memphis. Now it is generally the case that an airport of any size and in possession of modern appointments will have a wide range of shopping and dining options available to the airborne traveler. For unknown reasons Memphis does not adhere to this beneficial tendency, and one is limited in his edible options to several bbq restaurants and Lenny's Subshop. Now, in general bbq food is all well and good, but in an airport, where one lacks ready access to clean bathrooms and/or grass to clean oneself with following its consumption, this delicacy is just impractical. This means that one really has to content oneself with the rather suspect-seeming fare available at Lenny's. Despite its apparent lack of charm, Lenny's does end up delivering highly edible sandwiches, chips and cookies.

Following our repast, we boarded our jet headed to Baltimore-Washington International airport right on time. Everything seemed to be going great today! We taxied onto the runway, and we didn't even have to wait forever! Before I knew it, I was dozing off thousands of feet above the surface of the earth while we whisked away toward BWI.

It was about an hour into the journey when things first started to go wrong. The pilot came on the loudspeaker and announced that -- due to bad weather -- we would be in a holding pattern for the next hour at least just over West Virginia. Well, we said to ourselves, an extra hour isn't too bad, we'll still get there at least! Though, in the back of our minds, I think that we knew even then that it things were not fated to end well.

We carried on bravely all the same, and I managed to fall back into an uneasy slumber -- my mind troubled perhaps by a strange inkling of the doom that stalked us at every turn. I was rudely awakened a short interval later by another announcement from our captain. We would, he said, be landing in Pittsburgh, our prospects unknown, because of the forbidding weather that persisted in shrouding the eastern seaboard from all approaching planes.

We were of course quite concerned about the future of our trip when we landed, closer to our point of origination than destination. This being the case, I approached the flight attendant at the front of the plane as soon as was convenient to assess our options. As I walked down the narrow aisle of the plane, before I even opened my mouth in salutation, she greeted me with a brusque "Yes, sir, we're all hungry, but I'm afraid that we can't feed you now."

Like the Donner Party, she would have known it if I were hungry

This opening left me completely unmanned, and I didn't really end up getting much information out of the remainder of the interchange. I returned to my seat next to the Captain, who upon hearing the result of my first attempt, exhorted me to make a second. This second essay yielded much the same result, which greatly increased our mutual frustration. We endured the uncertainty and tediousness of waiting on a runway in a completely random airport until we were finally told that we could leave the plane ostensibly to secure food as "all the restaurants in Pittsburgh's airport close early on Saturday of all days."

Unbeknownst to the flight attendant that realeased us from our hitherto airborne gaol, the Captain and I had hatched a daring plan of escape from any further flight-induced frustration. In clandestine discussion we had resolved that if we were permitted to leave that plane's cabin, it would take more than the prospect of eventually reaching BWI to get us back in one again. Instead, we planned to secure a rental car and drive back home, across state lines, as we felt that we had expended enough time in airports already.

After carefully skirting security and all other potential obstructions, we arrived at the area of the Pittsburgh airport where one rents automobiles from various vendors. There was another scary moment when the first three rental places we approached told us that they were on a reservation basis only at that point, but we still managed to succeed in getting a car at the fourth place that we looked. The gentleman who handled our rental was a consummate salesman, managing to convince not only to purchase the rental, but insurance to boot! We felt so extravagant.

The drive itself is perhaps best omitted from this post, as it has already gotten prohibitively long. However I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that whilst trying to find the Pennsylvania Turnpike we happened upon a "Croatian Community Center," that advertised a weekly fish fry among other things. Needless to say, the relative benefits of roadtrippin' have become increasingly salient to us of late. Hopefully our suffering will be a warning to other unsuspecting travelers about the dangers of leaving the house, and dismissing the merits of brutal dictators too hastily.

Some progress

You know what that is? The first half of one of Sam's much-anticipated knee socks, that's what. Yeah, the Millicent socks are underway and going smoothly. I just finished the first skein and figure it was as good a time as any to post an update about them.

And please enjoy this picture of sleepy Jon for the road. A video montage to his awesomeness (and fantastically bad dancing) is in the works, so stay tuned.

FO: River Rapids Socks

(click for bigger)

Yeah, so, sorry for the delayed absence (again). These have been done for awhile, but I couldn't fine the cable to my digital camera for the longest time....and I've been completely taken over by warcraft. In fact, if you're interested, you can read about it here. But this is a knitting blog, so I'll stick to that.

Yay! Another one scratched off the Dreaded Sock Queue!

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Look at that! Finally making some progress. I've actually already started Sam's Millicent socks, but it'll be awhile before they're done. BUT THEY WILL GET DONE, goddammit.

Yarn - Hipknits, but I don't remember the colorway and I can't for the life of me find the tag (when did I start losing everything? I swear, I'm inches away from becoming that doddering old woman with the plastic bag wrapped over her blue 'do mumbling to herself in the supermarket. This close.).

Needles - 32" (I think) size 1 addi turbos. Although, they are bigger than my size 1 bamboo dpns, which I think means they're really size 1.5. But whatever.

Pattern - River Rapids by Sock Bug. This is a really simple, really pretty pattern that was kind of ridiculously fast to knit. As always, there were mods:

• worked it toe up, substituting a short-row heel
• I didn't work 1, 2, 8, or 9 of the chart. I dropped them because it made the chart easier to memorize and I am a lazy, lazy girl.

FO: Spiral Boot Socks

(click for bigger)

Look, they're done! My sister will be so happy...you know, because feet get really cold in May in Texas. Ah well, better late than never, right? In any case, I do get the satisfaction of scratching one more pair off the infamous sock queue:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Ah. Finally making progress! Speaking of which, I'll likely be done with another pair really soon, so stay tuned - it could be yours!

Yarn - 2 skeins Knitpicks Gloss (70% merino, 30% silk) in burgundy. This is really nice shiny yarn, especially for the price. I found it to be kind of splitty, though, and not as soft as I was expecting.

Needles - I merrily magic looped away on 32" size 2 addi turbos.

Pattern - Spiral Boot Socks from Interweave Knits, Summer 2007. Really, the only mods I made were working it toe-up instead of top-down and substituting a short-row heel.

A good beginning to the summer

Sorry about the month-long absence! It's been crazy around here - first finals, then prelims (which I just turned in yesterday! Woo!), then a week or so of zombified recovery with much sleeping. This summer looks like it'll be great though, basically no set schedule and plenty of time to catch up on the analysis/writing up for publication (!!) of all the data I've been collecting. I even found a ways to run stats via a remote desktop from home! And of course, sweatpants + SPSS = nerd heaven. This also means I've got way more time to knit, and that I'm actually making progress on some stuff, so expect more regular posting in the near future.

But before we get to all of that, I should tell you about Tamar's visit! She and her boyfriend, James (who is also awesome), came to visit a couple of weeks ago, right after finals were over and right before I had to kick it into high gear to finish prelims. So, perfect timing. We spent a lot of time playing warcraft and eating various pizza-related products, but probably the most entertaining part of their visit for those of you who weren't there was when we went to the playground in the park next to my apartment building.




See, when Tamar and I used to live next door to each other junior year at Oberlin, we lived in a building called Firelands which was campus-owned off-campus housing for upper-level students. It was actually a converted old folks' home with random bars you could grab hold of in the bathroom to prevent you from falling and being unable to get back up, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, one nice thing about Firelands was that all the apartments in it had a teeny stove, meaning you could cook in the privacy of your own home instead of in a group kitchen. Being the inexperienced college students we were, few of us (apparently) knew how to operate said stoves appropriately, meaning that fire alarms were constantly going off. During said fire alarms, Tamar and I would often scamper over to the swing set across the street and play on it until the firefighters let us back inside. So, in a weird way, this was kind of nostalgic for me.

Although, I should note that in all that time, I never noticed the fear that Tamar had of swinging which she ever so cogently describes here:

Sorry for the lack of posts...

...but it's hard to blog from the PICKET LINE!

Basically, I've spent all of my free time preparing and mobilizing for the grad student's strike here at UMich (because we need a GODDAMN CONTRACT! Right? YEAH!). Today was the first day, and I am achy and covered in blisters.

Regular blogging will resume when the dust has settled and I get a living wage.

FO: Proletariat Socks

(click for bigger)

My stepdad's socks are done! I know I'm already a few months late, but I'm starting to really bang through the sock queue! It's a good feeling. Check out the progress:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
   
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Something sockish for Dani (possibly booties?)
   
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Despite the top picture, I think these turned out pretty good. They're totally inoffensive to one's masculine, both in color (a nice manly gray) and texture (just ribs and seed stitch), and machine washable to ensure optimal low maintenance care.

Yarn - 2 skeins of Knitpicks Swish DK (123 yards, 100% superwash merino) in mist. This is awesome yarn for thickish socks - it's squishy and soft, but still stretchy and not too heavy.

Needles - magic looped 'em on my trusty 40" size 3 addi turbo circulars

Pattern - I totally made this up as I went along at the socialist thingy. Here's how it went:

• CO 28 sts using figure 8 technique, and increase 1 st at beginning and end of each needle every other row until there's 60 sts total
• For the top of the foot: p1, k2, p2, work 20 in seed st, p2, k2, p1. Knit across sole.
• Around round 40, start gusset increases by increasing 1 at the beg. and end of the sole section every other round. Continue the top of foot pattern. Repeat until you have worked 10 increase rounds.
  
• For the heel: p1, k2, p2, work 20 in seed st, p2, k2, p2tog. Turn work and sl1, then: p2, k2, work 20 in seed st, k2, p2, k2tog. Repeat until all the increased sts have been used up, which should be 20 rows (PS - notice something missing? Like short rows? Yeah, I totally blanked on that. I think they turned ok anyway).
• Keep knitting the leg in the rib/seed st pattern as established until you run out of yarn. BO loosely.
  

Returning to the Sock Queue

Yeah, about that sock queue...no improvements since my mom's socks. I started these a really long time ago, back before new years, but have only been working on them off and on. Part of that is because I've only been knitting, period, off and on due to a more hectic semester than I predicted (and that I kind of selfishly only want to knit for myself when I am able to carve out the time for it), and part of it is due to the odd amount of difficulty I've been having memorizing the pattern. It's not a particularly difficult pattern, but for some reason, I am just not getting the logic of it.

So, bottom line is that I have 2/3 of one of my sister's spiral boots socks done. Slowly, tediously, it will get finished.

Socialism + Knitting = Awesome Hats (and other stuff, too)

(click for bigger)

I've apparently developed a habit of associating hats and those long-ass socialism meeting that have been alluded to in the last couple of posts. Case in point: last year, I made this hat at the meeting, and this year, I made the chapeau above in preparation for the meeting.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "as a faithful and dedicated reader of your blog, I am fully aware that you already have quality hats! What could you really call this and this but awesome headgear? You don't need another one!" And you'd be right about that, reader, if the aforementioned commie get-together was held in Boston, like last year. But it wasn't...it was in Minneapolis. So, while I do have some pretty snazzy hats, I feared they were only Michigan-compatible - not really appropriate for the Icebox of America, you know?

Besides, I was buying yarn as a birthday present for Jon anyway (he's expressed interest in working in the round, maybe even making his own awesome hats), which served as a good excuse to buy some more yarn for myself.

Yarn - 2 skeins of Rowan Big Wool (100% wool, 87 yards), one in glamour and one in stormy. Since time was of the essence, I used really bulky yarn. To be honest, I've been looking for a good excuse to use big, puffy yarn since knitting with it so quick and satisfying.

Needles - I stole the clover size 11 bamboo straights Jon's been using for his scarf. You know, it's really weird to knit a hat on straight needles.

Pattern - Tychus from Knitty, modified for my gigantic gauge, a pom-pom, and earflaps.

The best part was that after the hat was done, I realized that a lot of yarn was leftover - enough to make these slipper-socks!

(click for bigger)

Aren't they awesome? They're great for me, since I have ridiculously cold feet.

Yarn - clearly, the same as above

Needles - set of 4 Brittany size 11 birch dpns

Pattern - a basic toe-up sock with 1 x 1 ribbing on the cuff and top of the foot. I casted on 10 sts using the figure 8 method, increased to 26 sts, and then worked the foot with ribbing on the top and a stockinette sole for 15 rounds using the other color. I worked a short row heel in the first color, then worked 4 rounds in the second color in 1 x 1 ribbing. The last round was worked using the first color before binding off.

My 100th post: the 80th Annual Oscars

So....last weekend was another one of those socialist extravaganzas that I’m prone to going to – you know, trapped in a room discussing the evils of capitalism and how to fix it for 14 hours straight 3 days in a row. By Sunday night, Dani and I were understandably exhausted and decided to watch the Oscars. We thought we'd let you in on how that little adventure went for us. The following was composed as we watched it and then edited for clarity later:
_________________________________________________________________
As Jon Stewart emerges from some sort of tube:
Me: that set….looks like plumbing

Best costumes:
Dani: I love Cate Blanchett
Me: me too
(Elizabeth:The Golden Age wins)
Dani: I agree with that. Period pieces always win.
Me: hey, that winner’s dress rocks! I suppose it would have to, considering the category.
Dani: Whatev. She has veiny hands and looks like an elementary school art teacher.

Weird 80th anniversary montage:
Jon: Is that when Peter O’Toole won the lifetime achievement award?
Me: Don’t even get me started. It’s a crime he hasn’t actually won one yet. That’s a big reason why the Oscars are bullshit, if you ask me.
Dani: Wait – is that old guy giving a speech Charlie Chaplin?! Creepy.
Jon: IMDB says he died in the 70s.
Me: Hearing him speak is so weird…I feel like I’ve seen him naked now.

Best animated feature:
Dani: These choices are lame. Why no simpson's movie?
Me: Maybe because it was a TV show before?
(Ratatouille wins)
Dani: WHAT? Ratatouille won best animated feature over Persepolis?? That is so not cool. {lame point #1}

Best makeup:
Dani: Whoa, Katherine Heigl looks scary.
Jon: Yeah…like a robot.
Me: Norbit was nominated for best make up? Wha? How could it be nominated for anything? {lame point #2}
(La Vie En Rose wins)
Dani: Marion Cottillard is beyond thrilled.
Me: imagine if she actually wins…

(Amy Adams, who Dani found awesome, sings a song from Enchanted which Jon found bizarre. Then, we watched a creepy mastercard commercial with a guy with a strange, creepy independently moving eye and were profoundly disturbed.)

Visual effects:
Dani: did they just call him dwayne johnson?? the hell?
Me: Well yeah. He's...THE ROCK.
(while the visual effects team from The Golden Compass accept their Oscars)
Me: Those dudes look like a barbershop quartet.

Art direction:
Dani: This is a hard category. I’d be happy with any of these winning.
(a pair of presumably Italian people accept awards for Sweeney Todd and give an extraordinarily stilted speech)
Me: Man. They are not so good at English…this is kind of painful.

Supporting actor:
Dani: What is with Jennifer Hudson’s boobs?
Me: They’re, like, 3D! Also, did Phillip Seymour Hoffman highlight hair?
(Javier Bardem wins)
Me: Aww! He brought his mom! That’s nice.

(A montage of binouculars and periscopes that way made before the writer’s strike ended was played, which I found awesome {highlight #1}, and Keri Russell came out in a lovely dress to introduce a song from August Rush. Jon, who actually really wanted to see the movie, started incoherently singing along.)

Live action short film:
Dani: Why are all of these foreign?
Craig (Dani’s Gentlemen Friend): Tonto Woman looks awesome!

Animated Short:
(Peter and the Wolf wins)
Dani: are the cutting out all the pauses? And opening the envelope ahead of time?! {lame point #3}
Jon: the winners brought scary peter doll!
Me: It kind of looks like you, dude.

Best Supporting Actress:
(while watching a montage of past winners)
Me: I do love alan arkin
Jon: I hate alan alda.
Me: I do love tilda swinton, as well! That lady behind her has way too much cleavage happenng, though…
Dani: Tilda Swinton is looking a little scary alien-bowie-esque.
Me: Hey, did she just mention the Clooney Batman Nipple-suit?
Dani: Yes! We should hang out with her. {highlight #2}

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Me: Man, could the Coen Brother’s acceptance speech have been any more awkward?

(we were subjected to yet another lame montage, but noticed a mysterious Jerry Orbach look alike in audience before it played. Then, Hannah Montana introduced the third musical number, which turned out to be some vaguely racist extravaganza from Enchanted) {lame point #4}

Best Actress:
Jon: Forest Whitaker lost a ton of weight – what an amazing face!
(Marion Cottilard wins and gives a speech that includes the following direct quotations: "you rocked my life!!" and "thank you life, thank you love, it is true there are some angels in this city!") highlight #3
Me: Her dress is…scaly. She’s like a scaly Sally Field up there.

(a song from Once was played by the earnest-looking pair from the movie, and then there was an extremely enjoyable montage of the past best picture winners, where Craig made fun of my deep love of overly long dramas where nothing happens)

Honorary Oscar:
Me: Is Nicole Kidman wearing tinsel?
Jon: She looks like robot!
(tiny old man takes the stage to give the longest and most rambling acceptance speech in history, which brough Harrison Ford to the brink of tears and made Laure Linney actually cry. Tommy Lee Jones, on the other hand, has a mean poker face) {lame point #4}

Best Foreign Film:
Dani: Kazakhstan made a film?

(the last song from Enchanted is performed – all watching agree it is very lame indeed)

Best Song:
(that song from Once is announced as the winner)
Dani: I called it! Hey, why'd she change out of her awesome dress?
Me: Look! Laura Linney’s crying again!
Dani: zzzzzzzzz (she passed out on the couch) {highlight #4}

(during the people who died montage, I shocked to find out that Deborah Kerr had passed on. I deeply mourned the loss of Bergman, and was once again made fun of for my movie-dorkness by Craig and Jon)

Best Actor
Me: How weird is it that the dude from Eastern Promises is Aragon?
Jon: He is?? I had no idea!
(Daniel Day-Lewis wins and gives a speech where he mentions his fantastically-named children: Gabriel, Ronan, and Cashel)
Jon: I predicted that after I saw the SAG awards.
Me: What?! When did you see the SAG awards? Since when do you watch awards shows in secret by yourself?

Best Director:
Me: Hee! Martin Scorcese and his caterpillar eyebrows…
(The Coen brothers win and awkwardly explain that they made a movie when they were twelvish entitled Henry Kissinger: Man On The Go.) {highlight #5}

Best Picture:
Craig: Oh, hey! A third rousing speech by the Coen brothers!

Jon: You know who was conspicuously absent? Lindsay Lohan, that’s who.

Fighting the Good Fight

So, as alluded to in my last post, I spent the weekend at another one of those three-day-long socialist meetings. These meetings are so odd - on the one hand, I really enjoy them because I no longer live near a proper branch and thus no longer get these kinds of awesome conversations and get all pumped and inspired to do stuff (instead, as you know, I watch a lot of of ANTM). On the other hand, as much as I like the people there, they do tend to be a bit pretentious and drop terms like 'historical materialism' and 'radicalized youth' like they were the names of celebrities and they were desperately trying to get in to a club on Saturday night.

Mostly though, it was just exhausting. I stayed focused by writing really detailed notes and by knitting these socks:

Check out the TV: It's SPRING BREAK and I'm rewatching as much of Lost as is humanly possible.

They don't really have a name yet, but they're gray, not fancy at all, and for my mechanic stepfather. Given the atmosphere, I was toying with calling them proletariat socks of something equally ridiculous.

If you've ever wondered what our kind does for fun, stay tuned - Dani and I blogged the Oscars and it will be posted this week.