About two years ago we had two turtles that would visit us every day on the back porch. Mostly they came to visit the overripe fruit we would put on the back porch for them to eat. At first we thought we only had one turtle but one day Cody saw two. And he put them in a cardboard box thinking I might want to keep them as pets.

When I started doing research online about what to feed them and what kind of terrarium to get I read an interesting article about how people shouldn’t take the turtles from their backyard and make them into household pets, that it depletes the natural population, and I should only get turtles from the pet store who are specifically bred to be pets. So we put them back on the porch with their tiny turtle brains carrying only a faint memory of their day-long vacation in the cardboard motel.

We could still keep them as wild backyard pets like the birds and lizards. (Someday I’ll get a photo of the roadrunner that eats the lizards off the back wall.)

The idea of a pocket-sized pet still appealed to us though. We really wanted another puppy but knew that with Ms. Spoiled Ridgeback US and three demanding cats it really would be more than we could handle. So we started looking into a smaller pets. One time I looked down at Winter’s hedgehog stuffed chew toy and it inspried me to do a quick search about hedgehogs as pets. Lo there happened to be a hedgehog breeder right here in Albuquerque. Needless to say we were the proud owners of a baby hedgehog within two weeks.

But we would still put fruit out on the porch for the turtles and they kept coming back in the warmer weather. They did their wintering elsewhere. But last year four very large trees in our yard succumbed to disease and we had them removed. As well as a line of large juniper bushes that were well on their way to dying too.

I never saw the turtles last summer and hoped they hadn’t been killed by all the yard and tree guys. But look what I saw on our back porch last friday.

It seems they (or one of them) had a baby. It’s much smaller than the other two - the shell is about the size of the palm of my hand.

I sliced up a mushy nectarine and a few strawberries and took them outside. But Zippy wasn’t after fruit. Zippy was after the dead black beatles from the recent exterminator visit.

Why Zippy you ask? This turtle is pretty fast! Check out the video I made. (click the still below and the movie file will pop up)

This was the first time I tried the video feature on the digital camera so please excuse the shakiness and stuff. I guess this qualifies as backyard pet blogging.

We didn’t get a lot of photos during our trip to the farm in Socorro. We were too busy being hot and trying not to discuss politics and religion. I grabbed a few in the car on the way down. And this one of Winter visiting with teenincy cousin dogs is pretty damn cute too.

We call those her lamb ears.

Original Child Bomb

interesting mefi thread about it

I’ve been meaning to write about the channel that launched on Direct TV on the first of July but keep forgetting to mention it which is odd because I’ve been watching it a lot.

No not that reality tv channel I haven’t stopped there for more than five seconds and that was to make sure the title of the show really was The Littlest Bachelor and I wasn’t having a caffeine-induced hallucination.

I’m talking about LOGO - the first general interest non-premium cable channel in the US (that I know of) where the target audience is Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and/or Transgendered. Their catchphase is The Evolution will be Televised. How friggin cool.

It’s run by Mtv networks (who obviously produce MTV as well as VH1, SpikeTV, and Nick at Nite) whose parent company is Viacom, which owns pretty much the largest collective group of entertainment companies (also affectionately known as the world’s largest entertainment global conglomerate), among them Paramount Pictures and Paramount Home Entertainment, Comedy Central, Showtime, Showtime network channels including Sundance Channel, The Movie Channel, and Flix; Spelling Television, Infinity Broadcasting (which runs over 150 radio stations in the US, not to be confused with Clear Channel), roughly 50 CBS channels, 35 UPN channels, and Simon and Schuster Publishing house, among other interesting holdings.

And people thought I was cynical when I talked about VH1s I love the (insert decade here)s shows being (as fun as they were to watch) basically shows with incredibly cheap overhead with interviews of actors who work for production companies producing shows for Viacom discussing scenes from old tv shows and movies owned by Viacom to generate sales of backcatalogued dvds on sale from…Viacom!!

Ok enough about my random media conglomerate insidious (some would say incestuous) marketing theories I meant this post to be about LOGO channel.

It’s clear they’re still in the process of filming original programming but in the meantime this channel has access to a gigantic vault of (edited to suit general public cable standards) movies, shows, standup comedians, live concerts, and documentaries through its parent comany. There’s also plans in the works for LGBT news updates via CBS

So the programming has been unique, and in some cases there’s been a movie on where it took me a second to recognize why it could be considered a “gay movie” or really hold any particular interest with the gay community. But that’s been happening with the BlackStarz channel for years, especially the early days where it almost seemed like the programming director would say “Oh! An American of African descent with two lines! Let’s put that in the lineup!” Honestly any company with a more specifically defined target audience runs the greater risk of a miss than hit sometimes and faces a lot of airtime to fill with films and shows that might have only a passing connection with the target group.

The strange nuances of catering to a diverse marketing target aside, I find the launch of this channel to be a reassuring sign. That while all this gay backlash and stupid ass anti-gay marriage bills going on a giant conglomerate company finally recognizes the power and interest (not to mention spending power) of this group of people enough to launch a channel aimed directly at them.

And I was delighted to see just how many advertisers there were even one day after the launch. And a diverse bunch of ads it is so far, including Miller Lite, Motorola, Tylenol PM, Lions Gate Films (which, as far as I know is not owned by Viacom), Showtime Network (which, of course, is), Key West Tourism Council (not owned by Viacom, yet), Debtfree.com, and Travelocity. (Ironically I found this list on a big anti-gay christian website calling for a boycott- lists like that work both ways assholes!)

My favorite moment on this channel so far has to be Alan Cumming’s brilliant acceptance speech on the broadcast of the GLAAD media awards. Like he wasn’t already my secret boyfriend.

Wish I could find a full transcript of it. It was brilliant. And in his dead sexy Scottish accent too. *swoon*

LOGO is airing on Direct TV channel 263 as part of the Total Choice Plus Package which includes the basic lineup and additional channels like Biography, History International, Lifetime Real Women, DIY Network, and a slew of Discovery channels.

According to Wikipedia it’s also airing on Charter Communications, Adelphia, Cablevision, Time Warner (a very interesting media conglomerate on its own) Cable, and RCN in an estimated 10 to 13 million homes in the US and will be delivered via Comcast soon. There’s the usual zip code search feature on the Logo website to see if and how you can get it.

Tonight I’ll be watching the final ep of Queer as Folk on Viacom-owned Showtime. It’s been a guilty pleasure of mine since season 3 and have to admit I’m kind of sad to see it go. I’m not a huge fan of gratiutous graphic sex scenes in gay or straight dramas, certainly not against characters having sex or anything, QAF just sometimes seemed to have scenes that were confrontational simply because they could be. But hey what show doesn’t take advantage of sex in one way or another? And yes there’s not one bear or non-cranky lesbian character amongst them. It made a fairly broad simplification of the “gay lifestyle” at times and the only fag hag was Michael’s mom. But all in all it was a fun show with apt social situational storylines in a shiny sugary (without being too precious) package. It was an adult gay soap opera with an occasional message. And it was fun to watch.

You Are Ed Wood From "Ed Wood." You definitely have your name in history, although probably not for the reason you believe. (oh I have no doubt about that) Yet you are very accepting, non-judgemental, and optimistic almost to a fault. (that’s SO not true.) You also have a thing for angora sweaters. (not really) How could anyone not like you?(I dunno but lots of people find ways. Probably because I’m not one-sixteenth as adorable as Johnny Depp.)

Take The Johnny Depp Quiz!

found via moonshine highways

This week I have several small projects but all made with the same yarn: Kichen Cotton.

I’ve been wanting to make the one skein wonder shrug because I had read many great reviews of the simplicity and ingenuity of the pattern but can’t think of one woman I would knit for who would look good in it. This isn’t a slight against the pattern or the women in my life - just a simple recognition of a cut that is not meant for big bellied, big boobied curvy women or smaller but big-shouldered women. We have enough trouble finding clothes that fit us we really don’t need to be wearing something that looks like it shrunk in the wash.

This is something that is meant for the tiny girls. Again. Anyway, the only tiny girl I would knit for would be the niece. So I decided to, yet again, adapt a popular pattern to fit her.

It took a little work because I needed to give her a lot more ease in the sleeves for her chubby baby arms but I used the standard measurements of approx 8.25 across the back and 7.5 upper arm circumference. I used these same standard sizes for the baby bucket hat and it fit her perfectly.

I used the leftover Lion Kitchen Cotton yarn for the shrug that I had used for the hat so they should match perfectly. There are a few more photos in the flickr set.

But wait! There’s more!

I also made a few dishcloths and dish scrubbies to bring to Cody’s Great Aunt Mae when we visit her on the farm in Socorro. They’re such simple little knits, great way to practice a technique or pattern, a lot like sketches but with yarn. They’re also a nice simple gift and I’ve heard they do a great job scrubbing pots.

And, lemme tell you, using cotton yarn like this is CHEAP this stuff is like 1.99 - 3.99 and you can get 2-4 washcloths out of one skein. The only challenge is that this cotton is slightly rough and has almost no give. But after a little practice you get used to using non-stretchy yarn.

I also found a really cool pattern for round pot scrubbies (which I’m entirely too tired to go find again right now). They take an hour to make and are swirly.

So altogether I’m bringing two circular scrubbies, a scrubbing washcloth, and three larger dishcloths. All tied up with an icord. The other cloths are on flickr.

And last but not least

A few weeks ago, after the first fun with Kool Aid weekend I bought some white Lily sugar and cream cotton. Now acid dyes like Kool Aid doesn’t work on plant-based yarn like, say, cotton or bamboo. Nor does it work on the petroleum-based yarns.

But I found a great tutorial on craftster on how to dye plant yarns and used some tie dye kit dye on some skeins of the white cotton yarn yesterday. I’ve set up a little studio on the back porch because the one yarn dyeing experiment I tried in the kitchen just didn’t work out. I was too worried I was going to make a mess to really create anything good. But I had an old stained desk leftover from the office makeover and just set it up outside.

So yesterday I did some fabric dyeing on the cotton skeins (which I had to unball and roll into skeins - good news! The goko swift is good for that too!). The colors were a little simple - I was working with a very simple palette of red, blue, and yellow (I particularly dislike the fluorescent yellow) so I vareigated it as much as I could. After rinsing it the colors were still a little simple - and some had blurred together into an unappetizing orangish brown. So this morning I sprayed Clorax Cleanup on parts and let that sit for a while before rinsing. Now that did some cool stuff. The yellow is still a bit too day-glo for my taste but what the hell I’m learning and they’ll make interesting dishcloths anyway.

Joni Mitchell - My Old Man
Type O Negative - Summer Breeze (hifuckinlarious goth cover)
B-A-B-Y - Carla Thomas (from Beg, Scream, and Shout)
Purple Rain - Stina Nordenstam (*not* from Purple Pain)
If I Didn’t Care - The Ink Spots
Personality Crisis - Donna Matthews w/ Teenage Fanclub (from Velvet Goldmine)
Goodbye to You - Scandal
All My Colors - Echo and the Bunnymen
It’s Wonderful - Ella Fitzgerald
Use Me - Ike and Tina Turner

I received this interesting email yesterday.

Any suggestions? Best answer I can come up with so far is linking to the disclaimer.

Christ, now I’m having existential dilemmas about my website. Because the personal ones just don’t take up enough of my time.