Which flock do you follow?

this quiz was made by alanna

snagged from beth

No old school funk or soul? Or blues? feh!

snagged from kristine

- Finishing the zigzag scarf for my mother
- Watching Shaun of the Dead (eeee! Bill Nighy!! love him!)
- Starting a purse for a birthday girl
- Making a sad attempt to organize all this yarn I’ve acquired in the past week
- Realizing that I didn’t have enough boucle yarn in the colorway I’d picked out for my mother-in-law’s scarf
- Watching that sequel to Bridget Jones’ Diary (meh. But getting to see another namby pamby fight scene with Firth and Grant was totally worth it.)
- Blocking the zigzag scarf for my mother
- Discovering that the boucle yarn colorway for my m-i-l’s scarf had been discontinued sometime last year after going to the Outlet Store to get more.
- Getting boba tea and spring rolls again.
- Cutting the fringe for my mother’s zigzag scarf and realizing it was too short.
- Getting a short haircut from my mother-in-law. (Have I ever mentioned the strange coincidence that Cody’s mother used to run a beauty shop in Los Lunas and my Mom worked in her Mother’s beauty shop in Memphis to put herself through college?)
- Playing around with the zigzag scarf fringe and some beads until I’d found a pretty good solution. (see photos in the extended entry)

Discovering that my experience with the ladies at the Fiesta Yarns Outlet Store is what most people associate with their local yarn store. I showed the zigzag scarf and ipod cozy to the woman who had helped us pick out some yarn the week I’d learned to knit in February. She was very proud (and probably not as impressed as she was acting but it was very sweet). She’s also usually the model for Fiesta’s patterns. She reminds me of Jocelyn’s mom. We love her.

Today we are going to:
- Go buy a new bed. The circa 1993 king futon and wood frame officially died. There goes our savings. Sorry Juus.
- If we have any money leftover we’re going for sushi. Thanks Heather.
- I’m really going to try to make it to Knit Night too. Thanks Meg!

I’m putting lots of picture in the extended entry since Mom wanted to be surprised. And there are lots in the photo journal as well. So no peeking Mom!
(more…)

Well this is not a big freakin surprise

snagged from Mr Man!

a side note: movable type’s “future post” feature is very strange. Yes, I created a cron job and changed the “periodic” file’s attributes to 755. Now it just changes from “future” to “publish” but I still have to rebuild the site to have it show up on the site. So my butt still has to be in the chair for it to show up. And, to me, rebuilding the entire site is a bigger pain in the ass than just publishing the post. Any mt future post thoughts out there? A way to make a rebuild cron job as well maybe?

Snagged from Ms. Snark

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!

Level 6 - The City of Dis

You approach Satan’s wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.

Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

today’s Saturday Quiz is brought to you by Mr. Tonic

You know those sites that make the voices in your head screech every time you go but you just can’t keep yourself from visiting every once in a while? You know what I’m talking about here. It’s like watching the trashiest of talk shows, the goriest of “caught on film” episodes, or the most intellectually insulting sitcoms. Or that new “Showdogs Moms and Dads” show on Bravo. But online.

Maybe your self-torture runs toward the cringeworthy Rotten.com, or the strangely entrancing Whowouldbuythat.com. Or you get your rocks off on politically-charged head rush endorphins by looking at propaganda sites like The Heartland Institute, Town Hall, or The Family Research Council.

This week mine has been visiting the Duke City Fix every day. I said I was hopeful about the project but that doesn’t mean I’m an idealist. And if I didn’t genuinely care about it I would’ve visited once, scoffed, and never gone back. On the surface I’ve never been much of a proponent for tough love but I guess I have been known to give the people I trust and care more about more shit than those I wouldn’t poke with a long stick - because I respect them and trust that they respect me enough to take my opinion seriously. My criticisms about the site aren’t meant to be dismissive of the project - in fact, I really hope that, since I seem to be heard by a few of those involved, what I say here might actually make a difference.

With a few exceptions, it’s been pretty clear to me that while there was a whole lot of technical planning for the site infrastructure and design (both are great, btw, but I do get a bit annoyed having to do a captcha word with every comment - Maybe if there’s the ability to create a membership and avoid it - although I have no experience with the Nucleus publishing software they’re using so maybe not) there’s still a lot of work to be done on who the site’s audience is and focusing on what exactly they want to tell that audience.

This is a basic facet of writing and is required in publishing. When I worked for Woman Santa Fe magazine in 1997 a good part of our meetings were about defining this exact subject and how well our features, sidebars, and even our advertising fit in to that target readership.

From what Chantal, the editor, told me in her email, it’s aimed towards people who go “out and about” in Albuquerque. Well, I have to say that the last two posts from this admitted agoraphobic have had more to do with going out and about in Albuquerque than the articles that have been on there the last few days. There has been a post about how personal hygiene affects one’s success (if you’d want it) with a surface-oriented person on a date (and I’ve been told that there was an article about this exact subject in the Albuquerque Journal last month!), a great and gigantic article about free press, editorialism, and funding, and an editorial about an executive level weed pulling day for the City of Albuquerque with fudged statistics. That one about the weeds got a whole lot of comments. Which were then closed.

Duke City Fix is a cityblog by the people, for the people??

I’m starting to wonder if the people behind this (whom I don’t already know do so) have ever published anything on the web. If you’re going to accept comments you’re not always going to have control over them, that’s just how it goes. And that’s the beauty of accepting comments from the general public - issues will come up the writers had never thought of. But the general rule of thumb is to let the comments go until there’s serious threatening or trolling going on. And then it’s preferable to target and zap the troll not the comments. So if the comments are going to get shut down like that I’m wondering what the point of accepting comments is.

I’ll admit I’ve thought a lot of things about this site - and a lot of them haven’t been pleasant and probably overly critical. But the editor lost a lot of my respect by bringing up such a potentially heated subject (money, politics, and government is guaranteed to bring out strong opinions) then shut the comments down even when they hadn’t gotten that uncivilized. So the editor wanted to post an editorial to get our hackles up about using city funds for a thinly-veiled re-election campaign without facts other than what she directly observed yesterday morning and vague guessing without providing the public a chance to respond openly and without fear of reprisals.

The ability to publish opinions and make them freely available to the public is the point of publishing an independent web-based media, right?

I really wonder now who this site is for. Is it for the authors (who apparently were random website picks and personal friends of the creator) to have a place to talk about the kind of stuff they could be talking about on their own personal sites? Just, like, whatever they feel like writing (from dirty fingernails to armageddon themed mailers) with no accountability or consistency?

There’s been this whole weblog vs. the mainstream media argument going on ever since before the presidential election. Talk about making weblogs more accountable for what they publish. Which, for the most part, isn’t necessary because the weblog world tends to self-regulate and do the fact-checking. Publishing provocative articles without any established facts then not allowing the public to respond freely is a great way to present argumentative fodder for those who support cracking down on weblog regulation and accountability.

On a personal site all executive decisions are up to the main person. Their blog their rules. But group weblogs (particularly those who are claiming to represent an independent cross-section of a whole damn town) should follow a different set of rules. The argument has been made that since there are so many writers the subject can’t be controlled. Not buying it. There are very easy ways to make it so an article by a certain member isn’t immediately published and has to be approved by the editor. A bit controlling, yes, but probably a necessity to protect the integrity of the site - and no less so than the seemingly random number and recruitment of the writers.

So is the Duke City Fix (a name my native husband seems to resent highly in that he thinks that the name itself implies that a bunch of outsiders are offering their graced opinions on how to fix a broken city - but a name I defended to him as more of a jokey heroin slang thing) for people who’ve never been to Albuquerque? I wonder this because if you read the site odds are you know about the Frontier already. If you don’t know about the Frontier and you live in Albuquerque then you probably won’t be reading the site. I tried to be kind in my comment about The Frontier being the Cafe du Monde for Albuquerque because I’m genuinely trying to encourage this lofty ideal of keeping things positive about Albuquerque. Even if the woman who told me about the ideal wasn’t doing it either when she wrote a critical presumptive article then shut down the comments.

I like to think of myself as a constructive criticizer though. And I can’t stress enough my high hopes for the site. (Again, if I didn’t care I wouldn’t waste my precious relaxing knitting time writing about it)

These are my suggestions to make it appear as a more representative independent group weblog:

Meg tipped me off this morning about an estate sale going on that had a huge yarn stash. Since tonight was Cody’s second night off we decided to go check it out.

This is a yarn stash that puts most to shame. And from what I understand a lot had already been sold! There was the dayroom that was full, FULL of yarn. I kept thinking that surely she had owned a yarn store at some point. And those were just the wool blends. There were all kinds of acrylics in the garage. And the weaving wool in the downstairs bedroom with the room next door dedicated almost completely to two looms and all kinds of weaving and rugmaking accoutrements that are completely foreign to me. Aside from the yarn, buttons and bead bargains I think my favorite part was seeing items she’d created over the years hanging on the walls and stacked up around in different places. There were rug hangings and yarn art, and blankets. What a creative life this was.

And it was clear the couple had travelled a lot. Lots of nice collectibles from China, Central America, and various European countries. There were also old toys and games from their kids and grandkids, really nice nambe pieces which went very quickly, interesting pottery, and beautiful silverware and china.

Since we’d gotten so much yarn yesterday I was fairly conservative with purchases. And a lot of the yarns were rough wool mohair blends - completely appropriate for rugs but a little rough on a handknitter. I did pick up some bags of fun hand spun and dyed wool. There was a black wool blend that Cody liked. And some natural handspun too so I could try my hand at doing the dying thing myself. There were some old aluminum needles for fifty cents and I grabbed a nice big basket with a lid. It was fun. Busy “weekend” for us.

The sale is going on tomorrow and Saturday as well. It’s worth a visit just for a glimpse at the artifacts from such an interesting life.

Ironically, we did go out and do things at non-chain stores today. First order of business (after Cody got some sleep after working until 7 this morning making sure the wireless network for the lottery was up and running for New Mexicans’ late night powerball and roadrunner ticket purchases) was hitting Albuquerque’s local yarn store, Village Wools.

My last (which was simultaneously my first) visit there hadn’t gone very well. I found the people to be kind of insular and rude or only vaguely polite in a clipped yankee way which is the same thing to me. I found out that I wasn’t alone in finding the staff to be, well, not particularly helpful. But I’m also fully aware that I was very new to knitting (and still am) and while I was doing my best to not ask stupid n00b questions I probably was anyway. They still could’ve been nicer.

But this visit was great. It was about 4:30 and I think we were the only customers in the store. There was a lady, I believe she was Swiss, who was incredibly nice and even the other women working there didn’t make me feel like I’d interrupted their coffee break to check out my purchases.

I had my list and wanted to do a little skein-fondling but no plans for anything very specific other than the size 1-4 double pointed needles which was the original reason for the trip. I’d really liked working with the plastic ones I’d bought there before and haven’t seen them anywhere else. I’m definitely seeing the appeal of bamboo needles, though, since using a pair of Crystal Palaces for the zigzag scarf!

I wanted to check out some lamb’s pride worsted to see if I had any inspiration for a purse I wanted to make for a certain person’s birthday next month. On my list was a note for five skeins of lamb’s pride or noro kuryeon with maybe in parentheses.

Otherwise my only plan was to get Cody to pick out yarn for my first attempt at making socks. After looking around a bit I went to the back shelves where I’d found some good bargains last time. He picked out some debbie bliss denim then I looked in a small basket on the floor and, holy crap, found Noro Kureyon going for 5 dollars a skein! Ok, so they were different colorways - all sort of dark which is handy. But what a bargain and they’ll make a funky fun felted bag. I know it’s beautiful quality wool from Japan but it’s still cheap enough that if the birthday girl didn’t want to use such a random artistic thing with bursts of bright colors in public, at that price, I certainly wouldn’t be hurt. I wouldn’t recommend going and looking for them though..I grabbed them ALL mwahahaha! I also found a few cute stripey girly cotton yarns to make myself some socks. And a fun fur because I’m a n00b and easily distracted by shiny glass objects. And I got the new Interweave Knits!

Then we went over to chain store CompUSA for some geek shopping where we didn’t really get much except a case of bawls. And a car charger and desktop dock for Isabella the pink ipod mini. We spoil her.

THEN we went to Cafe O where I introduced Cody to boba tea and cold spring rolls. This cafe is a weirdly delightful little Asian deli built inside a comic book store. And the dining room tucked away in the back reminds me of the kinds of odd back rooms you’d see in small restaurants in New York or in the quarter in New Orleans. Cody summed up the green/red/walnut with stone and chrome-accent decorating scheme as Korean Gatsby.

The rolls I’d ordered (The O rolls with O sauce) were too spicy for me in that ‘burning the front of my tongue’ way while the ones he’d ordered (The Tsunami Rolls with wasabi cream sauce) were too hot for him because of the wasabi. It’s funny how our differences in regional backgrounds affect our heat tolerances. I can totally handle the wasabi horseradish type of burn while, even after living here twelve years, chile can kick me in the ass when I’m not looking. On the other hand, Cody can handle some seriously hot chile but the cocktail sauce at Felix’s in New Orleans totally kicked his ass. So we traded spring rolls. Then got more boba teas to go. (Mine was the Vanilla Mango Hurricane O flavor (not very original today was I?) and he got Cantaloupe with Honeydew)

Then we went on our merry chain store way and went to Best Buy so Mr Man could scope out games. Then to JoAnn fabrics so I could buy buttons, snaps, and seed pearl beads for the zigzag scarf’s fringe. And more novelty yarn.

Fun day. I’m kind of bummed no one complimented me on my adorable pink kitty punk mary janes though.

Words of wisdom and validation via the The Doctor Phil Random Quote Generator. Better than the real thing if you ask me.

from my sister who should be checking her snail mail this week.