I'm so excited! I just got my big birthday present. Wanna guess what it is??

A room! A room on what?

Yes! My parents just paid the deposits for Cody and my room on the Seasocks cruise! Squeeee! My Dad's so funny, he was like "What would you like most in the world for your birthday m'dear? You want to drag Cody on a cruise about knitting? Ok then." No he wasn't really like that but sometimes ya gotta wonder what he and Mom think about the kind of freak daughters they've created.

I'm very excited about this trip. I will be bringing my folding wheel and maybe we can have a spinning or dyeing class or something. Wouldn't that be fun?

Thank you Mom and Dad! Love you! See you Thursday!

So now that the Dyeorama hooha is dying down I don't have much of an excuse to not get work done on my remaining secret project - the one for Albuquerque. Now this has been in the works since April folks and it's still not perfect but dammit, I want to go public so I think this is the best it's going to get for now.

Say hello to the Albuquerque Craftistas

Scout and I've first talked about this back in April, as I said. Basically, we wanted to create a group for crafters in all its forms and provide a fun place to learn - without competitive bs or feeling like you're being judged for creating stuff that might not fall into a specific category. One where crafters could kick some crafts and be creative. Hopefully this will grow into something more but I thought it was finally time to get some work going on this project now that dyeorama's (finally) slowing down.

We had discussed starting a local chapter of the Craft Mafia but had decided that their focus on the more commercial aspect (while being a great thing) wasn't something that we wanted. We wanted people to get to participate regardless or skill or sales.

The good news is some enterprising chickies on Etsy have started an Albuquerque Chapter of the Craft Mafia which I am totally happy to join. And we've decided to be sister organizations since a lot of our memberships would overlap and while our financial goals might be different, we agree that it's all about the craft.

So, local Albuquerque crafters, hurry yourselves over and join la Craftistas! And if you like to sell stuff, join the Craft Mafia too!

I think our first order of business should be starting joint bowling and roller derby teams! Then we can all get matching tattoos. Yeah, I know, "Slow down there, cowgirl." It would be fun though wouldn't it?

For the non-locals there's a fun new knitting webring that I joined yesterday too. I'm totally a kickass joiner.

I got a lovely basket of snacks, fruit, and flowers from my parents today. It was about thirty minutes after I'd dismantled it and eaten some of the jalapeno gouda (YUM!) and crackers that it occurred to me that maybe I should take a photo. I'm way out of practice with this photo thing.

the little hedgehog said about web bandwagon at 4:53 AM - 3 comments - 1 trackbacks

Who knew knitting in public was such a big deal? On Worldwide Knit In Public Day, everyone is encouraged to go out into the world and knit. Knit openly and freely. Scoff at the granny-callers, threaten the obnoxious with your needles, tell them that no you won't knit a sweater for them but you might make them a scarf of some mittens sometime if they ask nicely.

The Albuquerque branch is being cohosted by Scout and Erin and will be taking place at the Flying Star on Rio Grande (the usual meeting place for the SNB) this Saturday from 9 to 11 am. I'm hoping to catch a ride to it since Mr. Man has to work Saturday night.

Whether or not I get to go I made a few buttons for the event. Yes I made that image myself as the founder requested. Feel free to take them.

I will also be walking with Ramona, Laurie, and Carole in the Susan G Komen event this Sunday. I'm hoping I can make the whole walk but I'm not kidding myself. Let's hope we won't be hitting 101 degrees like we did yesterday!

Only one day left in Cody's vacation but we're doing a lot of organizing and stuff. We've lived in this house since October 1998 and both tend to be slobby pack rats. So you can imagine how things build up. I'm also hell bent on fixing up the back bedroom into a proper studio craft room. I'm getting a lot of inspiration from this Flickr Group. But for right now we're working on our closets and fixing up our shared bathroom a little. I have two big garbage bags of clothes for The Arc and will probably have at least one more by the time they come to pick up stuff next week.

imagine that's being sung by Annie Lennox please.

The greatest irony about being a co-hostess of this Dyeorama thing is I've never participated in a yarn or knitting swap of any kind before. I did a secret santa a few years ago before I learned to knit and was involved in two ill-fated music cd swaps in which I totally overgave and didn't even get everything that were the basic requirements from others.

Because of these experiences I've never joined a swap since. Which is kind of why I make a good hostess I think, I'll totally nail your ass to the wall if you don't fulfill your swap, and I have access to all the info as well. Swap shirkers beware of this Dye-O-Rama mama!

So I've never signed up for the Secret Pal groups because I don't like sending out all these presents and getting my hopes up to find myself disappointed by sucky lazy people. But I have volunteered as an "angel" - to send presents to people whose Secret Pal bums out on them. And I'm excited because I got an angel assignment today! Goodie I get to spoil someone silly yay! I've already gotten a few fun presents together to send out to her. I feel so badly that she's been waiting so long for her surprises. I mean, I've been hearing about this swap from my friends for months and months and I hate to think about her waiting that long for someone. So here I come to save the day!

Scout and the superkids came to pick me up to go out to breakfast this morning. The Farmer's Market wasn't open though! We suspect that everyone saw it rain last night for the first time in three months and got scared. So we ended up going to our regular snb Flying Star and checking out an odd Yard Sale. There was much driving around listening to Scout and her kids sing along and carseat dance with pop tunes I'd never heard of. And Toothless Wonderboy read from a new book about Harriet Tubman. We both worked really hard to explain slavery in a way he'd understand. It was a fun spur of the moment outing. They were cute. I'm never having kids. LOL

I haven't posted in a while and usually that's a bad sign but I'm actually feeling better physically and mentally this week than I have in a long time. I think we may have found the perfect medicinal cocktail now. I'm very excited about this. The shorter hair seems to help as well. Easier to care for, less tangles, less heat on my neck.

And I actually have several surprise projects in the works. And, get this, none of these particular projects are knit or spun (by me anyway). A few involve crafts in general, one involves yarn specifically, one involves photography and crafting of a sort, and another one involves..well, no real way to describe that one so I'll let you wonder about it for a while. They'll all be revealed in time.

In other non-surprise project news we went and did serious grocery shopping at Trader Joe's now that Cody wasn't afraid of the potential hippiecrit prices (to be honest I don't blame him our bills in a normal grocery store can be pretty outrageous) but we did well! Several new things to try, several re-purchases of things we liked from last time. And while we still have to go to the regular grocery store for a *few* things the bill at TJ's was WELL under our usual grocery bill. So we're both pretty happy about that.

And the cats seemed to like the non fish flavored cat food tins. I don't recommend the tuna for cats it doesn't have a pop lid and that annoyed me I don't open the cat food in the kitchen I open it in the kitty bathroom dammit I don't have any can openers in there. So we're going to try a small bag of the dry cat food and see how they like it. They're very picky about their dry food. In this case picky means they only eat crap Science Diet that I put out as a last resort. But the dog, who will eat any dry food I put out, and loves eating the cats' poop when she sneaks into the laundry room, likes the dry dog food. Which wasn't really a surprise. The question was whether or not I'd approve of the food for her. And I do! No corn, first ingredient is not a meat meal or bi-product so I approve.

Ok, it's been a fairly long day. Before Trader Joe's I did some work on a really cool project (my Albuquerque knitter friends will LOVE this) and we had a visit to Scout's house since she lives near TJ's. So I got to meet Supergirl, Superboy, Superhusband, AND Superdog! Her house was unbelievably clean and organized (would you expect any less) and the kids were so sweet. Let me say, those Superkids are WAY cuter in person. My friend has a great little family there and I can't wait to visit again sometime. I'd invite them here but..I'm afraid the house would scare the children.

t's been warm which is nice but the angle of the sun is brutal on the house this time of year until we get the energy to go on the roof to get the swamp cooler working. So even with the windows open and the fans on the house doesn't cool down until late at night.

Not a lot of knitting going on. Still working on the same old projects. Still need to ply that pretty green yarn.

Oh! And you have about fifteen minutes to go wish Cari a Happy Birthday before she turns into a birthday pumpkin. I don't remember how old she is today but this girl totally kicks ass. She knits and snowboards. Not at the same time of course. And likes Upstairs Downstairs! Paisana!

I did not participate in the more popular April 1st flash your stash day even though I've been methodically trying to take photographs of my stash on my own. Want to know why? Simple. I find a good portion of the political articles posted at the main part of that website to be offensive, reactionary, and extremely small-minded and I didn't want to have anything to do with her, in any capacity, at all. Ever.

Not to say I have any fault with anyone who chose to participate in it. Not at all. I just couldn't and I don't feel particularly proud of my reasons either, believe me.

It's not like she gives two shits about or even knows who I am. And I know how stupid and petty it is and I've had that offensive saying "cutting off your nose to spite your face" (I wonder if that person has known anyone who has had their nose cut off, I have, and I doubt it would be thrown around so easily if they had) thrown at me before when I mentioned how small I felt for not wanting to even knit one of the little green zibibballs' patterns because I would feel dislike and general unhappiness with every stitch. Yeah, I dislike and disagree with her views that much. Call me petty or simple. But the personal is the political to me and I just cannot overlook some of the horrid things I've seen this woman write enough to enjoy the patterns or non-political web bandwagon ideas she's created.

I know that to a certain extent I suck for that. But I also know myself enough to know that that one little aspect of her life about which she feels soooo strongly would wiggle its way into my mind while I was working on her patterns or uploading her little graphics. I'm sure if she ever made it over to this site or had any reason to find interest in my site she'd probably feel the same way. And as far as I'm concerned I'm on medication to avoid depression. I don't drink because it's a depressant. Why the fuck would I bother participating in something with someone whose worldview would potentially depress me?

Now I'm the first person to say "Your blog, your rules," but I reserve the right to follow that with "My browser, my back button." I know myself enough to know that the few times I've tried to be kind or fair or even just honest to someone who is primarily an ideological polar opposite has never worked out. Never. It's best for me to just stay away and do my own thing. Surround myself with people who reinforce my happy little fluffy worldview in the same way El Busho has surrounded himself, keep my head down, and every once in a while say something when I think I should but not expect the moh-rons to understand.

There's this pledge thing from my hometown that I ran across last week. The city where I grew up has played a major part in civil rights in the US - good and bad. The bad parts were broadcast on the television all over the world for everyone to see and made people realize just how serious the situation in the US was. The good changes that came out of were primarily because of those broadcasts. It was forced to look at itself and change. Not very many cities have a giant mirror held up to itself in the way Birmingham did. And there are still a lot of changes that need to be made. But this is an interesting recent campaign that I've actually been trying to follow before I knew about it.

I think that this pledge should also include religious, ethnic background, sexual preference, and body-type. In my mind it does.

I've been trying to do that anyway. When my father-in-law makes offensive jokes about hispanics "but they're just jokes he doesn't really mean it blah blah," I say things like "I know you're joking but I'd be worried that I'd get in the habit of saying things like that. That I'd forget and say it to someone who didn't think I was joking and really find it hurtful." And he seems to get it. I think.

I was watching Gentleman's Agreement last year. The movie where Gregory Peck pretends to be a Jewish man in 1940s New York for a newspaper article. The really interesting thing that comes across, to me anyway, is that the people who allow others to make antisemitic jokes, the people who are silently embarassed and feel superior to the joke-makers, are just as guilty as the joker, if not moreso because they know better. And I have very serious views on racial, religious, ethnic, sexual preference, and body-type prejudices. Very serious. So, Gods help me, I actually feel like I should say something sometimes.

Unfortunately this comes off sometimes like I'm playing "World Cop" or a humorless liberal ass and I know my husband and my best friend have both commented that someday I'm going to get beaten up for saying it to the wrong person. This may or may not have an effect on my social phobias I don't know. It may be just because I hermit up in the house and get out of practice. But I've gotten much better at choosing my battles as I've gotten older. And I may be tooting my own horn here but my battlefights have gotten much better, meaner, and more subtle as I've gotten older as well.

Still, somewhere in there I just feel like if I let these people get away with saying something like that I'm more guilty than they are. So for the most part my solution is to just stick with people who don't say shit like that, and people who are intelligent and secure enough in their own beliefs to listen to someone else's opinion, even if they might not agree with it. And for the most part I'm lucky enough to be doing just that these days. *huggles*

So, um, with that said, I'll take photos of the noro today. Promisepromisepromise. As soon as I go on this forced dogwalking business. Cody's making me walk the dog in the mornings when he gets home from work. Isn't he mean?

I'm so lazy these days I've given up any pretense of posting a narrative blog entry. Just lists. And if I get any more morose and whiny on here I'm going to become an official emo blog. But if I'm destined to have a small animal-themed emo blog with occasional knitting posts, then a small animal-themed emo blog with occasional knitting posts I write.

Anyway, this is old-schooll link style bloggin, babies.

1. I'm incredibly proud of my friend, Scout. Where she gets the energy to raise two children, keep a spotless house, work at a yarn store, knit (and finish) projects on a consistent basis, and get quoted in a major US newspaper is beyond me. I envy her energy.

2. I have no idea what I've done to make a sweet guy like Cody love me so much. That he can be woken up with his wife in a pitiful state of simultaneous tears, nausea, and hunger because she's too sick and weak to figure out what to eat, make blueberry toast for her, introduce her to the eighth wonder of the world: apple slices with peanut butter, all without being cranky or upset, then go back to bed makes him a guy who should win a nobel prize for husbands.

3. I'm fairly sure that Zola has Wobbly Hedgehog Sydrome, a misleadingly cute name for a horrible disease. It's supposed to be similar to human MS. Basically her legs are getting stiff and can't hold her body up so she keeps falling over, especially when she tries to walk. Eventually she won't be able to move by herself. And while there are things that I can do to slow the degeneration there is no cure. I've been noticing slight changes since last fall but thought she was just being lazy and enjoying her new heating system a lot. At just under three years old she isn't that old for a hedgehog. And she's been much more vocal lately. For a while I thought she was just getting more talkative, now I think they're little honks of frustration because she can't get to where she wants to go.

This isn't definite yet. We're going to the vet this weekend. But it's looking pretty likely (warning! heartbreaking video of sick hedgehogs in this link!). Another genetics-related disease, despite going to a serious breeder. If there is a god I'm giving it a big middle finger right now. (Kind of explains the above crying hungry nauseous situation doesn't it?)

I've been holding her up to help her get some walking on the table and giving her little massages. The spookiest part (as it was when Melon was sick) is this is the least cranky and most compliant she's ever been. You know they're sick when they're not being feisty. And I don't think she can form a complete ball anymore.

And, yes, we will be putting her down when she's no longer able to move by herself. I believe very strongly in controlling the pain and keeping a good quality of life for my pets. The ability to say that there has been enough pain and to stop it now is one of the few things we can control. So we will. We'll probably send her body to the Veterinary School in Ft Collins where they can perform an autopsy to confirm that it was WHS. If it's positive I'll contact the breeder so she'll stop breeding that line.

4. I've been a greedy little yarn hoarder lately. Not only did I buy the gorgeous Maisy Day pink and green shawl set from Hello Yarn (even though I haven't finished the pumpkin patch one yet), I managed to snag two skeins of Vesper sock yarn (one midnight knitter and one neapolitan). I higly recommend subscribing to her etsy shop's rss feed that's how I managed to grab em before she was bought out. I've also been given the most amazing yarn lately - Lorna's Laces sock yarn, a great pink silk blend from Artful yarns in San Fran, really cool fiber to spin. But I think I mentioned that in a previous post. I should take some yarn porn photos. Especially of the bombyx silk bell. That thing is COOL!

5. I saw a post about fabric by a Japanese designer that used to be in my room when I was a little girl. It was the spookiest thing because I'd totally forgotten about this colorful automobile themed fabric. My mom stretched it over wooden frames like painting canvases and had them hanging in my room. Total freakish flashback when I saw it.

6. This is possibly the most depressing article about body image, women's value, the male gaze, and mental health I've ever read. A beautiful girl has a horrible psychosis - hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, inability to function..the whole deal. The only medication that works for her makes her gain weight. Everyone else is upset by the "loss" of her beauty despite her complete lack in interest in her physical change (presumably because she's happy to not be seeing or hearing things?).

The doctors seem to think the fact that she doesn't have stringent standards of beauty is an indication that she's still "broken". Fuckers. Between the romaniticizing of a beautiful crazy woman, the lack of value in mental health vs. the overvalued beauty standards, the creepiness of her doctor allowing his obvious physical attraction to his patient affect the medication and choice of treatment, not to mention the stilted way in which the article was written makes me, more than ever, Blame the Patriarchy.

7. This, on the other hand, is one of the more inspiring posts I've read in a while. And I read a lot of inspiring posts. Not only do I love the idea of Vanessa Bell, Dorothy Parker, and Henri Matisse being together in the same room, but the idea of sitting around knitting with them..what a delicious idea!

8. On a similar note I've decided, after hemming and hawing about the "commitment" of joining another knitalong, to join Project Spectrum. The concept of knitting with specific colors every month to celebrate the beauty and power of color strikes way too close to home for me to not get involved. So for the Month of March I will be knitting with the Red and Pink Posie color of Silk Road Tweed to make a besotted cable scarf.

9. I'm looking forward to Friday more than I've looked forward to watching the olympics in a long time.

10. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of the night I learned to knit. I know. Weird isn't it?

Believe me, I had no idea I would enjoy this particular hobby to this extent. I hadn't been creative with my hands pretty much since finishing my sculpture degree in 1997. Before that I'd been a tactile creator in one form or another since I was a young girl playing on my electric pottery wheel and painting on my little easel. But that myth about it being hard to be creative when you're happy is kind of true.

It's not a coincidence that I also met and moved in with the love of my life that year. Which is funny because I'd broken a lot of barriers that academic year. A set of my paintings had won an award at the annual student show, I'd joined a life drawing group of professional artists, which was also instrumental in changing how I felt about my own body because I discovered that the plumper, curvier models were a LOT more fun to draw. But I'd also had a major depressive episode, been diagnosed with and put on meds to treat depression for the first time, gone through major changes with some important friendships, and been alone with my mother when she had her first seizure, worked for a magazine that quickly went under, and taught myself html in a weekend. It was a weird-ass year.

So after a long incubation period, I started creating with my hands again. And it, as cheesy as it sounds, has changed my life. Oh, believe me, I'm sure I did my share of eye-rolling about the fiber arts when I was playing the macho power tool welding sculptor game. But I'd taken some great classes on women in the arts and already worked with Judy Chicago. I knew the potential of expression, great ideas, of history behind it. But I think it was when I saw Mac post about the knitty womb that really caught my attention. This was feminism and history and creativity coming together in a crazy fun way. Then I saw the Joey Ramone and Joan Jett dolls and Cody overheard me sqeal about the coolness of it all.

I started to fantasize about making my own DeeDee (the smarter, more pensive Ramone) doll. So for giftmas before last Cody bought Stitch and Bitch and Stitch and Bitch Nation for me. Then helped me buy what I needed to get started. Then took me down to see his crafty aunt when we were fixing her computer. She showed me how to do a long tail cast-on and a basic knit stitch. And the rest, as they say, is history. I was hooked.

And thank the gods for it because I finally found something to create with my hands again. I've actually found a way to be creative and feel somewhat financially successful too. The fact that it has hugely calming side effects has been a wonder too. And I've met some great and interesting friends. Which was incredibly important to me when Jocelyn, my best friend and major link to the rest of the world, moved to San Fran. I've been getting out at least once a week. And getting back into the groove of being a proper socialized person again. Not just some cranky feral woman who sleeps by day and is afraid of most people. Well, I'm being a little dramatic but sometimes it felt that way.

So thank you Cody. Thank you Mac. Thank you Knitty and Debbie and my Crafty Aunt-in-law. Thank you to my Albuquerque knitting friends for being so tolerant of my seeming constant need for positive reinforcement about my projects. Thanks you guys.

Ok, I'm off to take care of my little honking hedgehog I think she wants some food.

I think the Craftrevolution Etsy shop has done a myriad of good things.

Not only has it raised 20,500 dollars that has gone directly to the Red Cross but it has also given exposure to a great group of crafters and a wonderful place for creators to sell their items. Etsy may have waived their usual commission for the Craft Revolution shop but they have gotten an unbelievable number of new members and shopkeepers in the process.

Several of my favorite creators, like Erin and Mel, already had shops but now there are several new crafters who, after donating their stuff to the Craft Revolution fundraiser, decided to open a shop as well like Pesky Mac and ChaosTheoryJen.

Seeing how well some of my stuff sold in the fundraiser and how much yarn I've been spinning and non-gift knitting I've been doing, well, consider me a new rider on the bandwagon, ya'll.

Cody even made a little banner for me last night.

Why Noelle's Noodles? Well, NoelleNoodle or sometimes a derivitave, NoLNoodle, has been my standard online nickname / handle / membername / login ever since I signed up for a geocities website in July, 1997. The idea at the time was that I was just noodling around. After that I had my own domain and website called Noelle's Noodle which was more of a reference to whatever what going on in my brain.

So when creating my etsy account in order to buy something I used one of my standard names: noellenoodle. So since I already had that account, the way etsy works is I automatically got a subdomain for my shop: noellenoodle.etsy.com.

So what it's referring to now are the fibery noodles I've been making, all the noodling around I do with yarn, or the random knitting ideas that come out of my noodle. So there ya go, in case you were wondering.

I haven't uploaded anything for sale yet but there's also a nifty rss feed so you can subscribe to it on Bloglines or some other rss feed aggregator and see when I do.

This Etsy setup is incredibly cool.

Since I'm utterly out of any originality for posts I thought I'd just do theme day memes for a while.

So here goes Mikey's Marquee Monday combined with some Monday Petblogging (I totally cheated and just turned around to take this photo).

isn't she sweet?



ok I'm going to bed

Nyquil rocks my little white goathead-covered socks
oh how I love you, you giant fucking Q

Anyone else having trouble with their Bloglines account or have they decided they just don't like me anymore and shut down my account?

updated something like FIVE MINUTES LATER: oh of course after a good six hours of wondering this to myself now that I posted about it they friggin fixed it.

Remember my little hedgesanta game? Well, I saved the names I didn't draw in December in a little box and have been planning to do one drawing a month this year. Let's hope I can remember (and afford it) every month.

This month's lucky winner is Fiona! I'll be picking out a little bauble from her wishlist and sending it off today.

Oh, if you signed up before and would rather have a donation made to a charity in your name instead just let me know and I'll update it in my notes. Then if I draw your name I'll just post which charity you wanted and a link to your site. k?

More prezzies:

I could kick myself over and over for this, I missed my favorite Bad Kitty's birthday! Gaaah! So please go wish her many happy returns and convince her I'm not an oblivious forgetful ass, even if I kinda am. I'm working on a present for her that I promised a long time ago so hopefully that will make up for it! (And hopefully I can finish it tonight because I've got a job to work on tomorrow.)

Don't you hate this new trend in spam where the word pain is in the subject line? Seems like a really cruel way to get someone to read an ad for 'peejnis' enhancers. If it weren't for dreamhost's junk mail filter I would see about fifty of those a day per account in my inbox. I only had about 100 legitimate emails to deal with which isn't too bad at all considering I'd been gone for over a week. I'm still going through and answering stuff so please be patient while I get my bearings again.

So we're back in New Mexico. There's been much sleeping and going to get the hedgehog and checking the dog out of her hotel and Benny's bean burrito eating going on. The bill for the puppy hotel wasn't as much as we thought it would be and they did a great job with the bath, brush, and nail trimming. They were very nice and it was interesting to see that she'd been placed in the calm play group which included some tiny dogs. She's always been gentle with the little ones. But I think I prefer her usual place. Mostly because I get a little report card from her sitter every single day that she's in group day care. Now that's a job I'm seriously considering applying to get. Playing with dogs who have owners that clearly care for their dogs so I won't want to take them all home. This is why I'm not allowed to volunteer for shelters.

Speaking of doing good works. I've been watching and reading about the tsunami and can't help feeling there's not much I can do to help. But there are many many groups out there who have the ability to help and could use the funding. The numbers of lost souls are getting into a hundred thousand and that's far beyond anything I can imagine. One comparison I read was one and a half football stadium audiences. There are a lot of other sites that are writing much more eloquent, interesting posts about this though so I thought I'd do a link roundup so you could just visit them.

The Blogger's Tsunami Challenge has a goal of 5k in donations but only has about 900 dollars so far
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Help Blog
The Tsunami Help Needed Blog
Global Recon
South Asian Journalists Association

Whitters has a good post about Project HOPE
Mike Vaughn has very interesting things to say about someone with the UN allegedly calling the US stingy and what the NOAA could've done differently to warn residents around the Indian Ocean
Benjamin Rosenbaum has a great comparison chart for the charities listed on Google's Tsunami Relief page.
There's also CNN's list of charities and Charity Navigator who I got linked to by
Daisy, who is posting some really interesting stuff about this and did a mini blog marathon to raise funds and awareness
NewMexiken points out that the aid promised to the Asian relief effort by our government approximates the funding for the inaugural ceremonies next month. (And that today is Patti Smith's 58th birthday. Rock on.)
World helps - but will it forget?
Wikipedia Entry on the Earthquake and Tsunami and a list of charities

All those places have much more helpful information and interesting things to say than I do. If you have links to good articles, posts, or help sites please post them in comments and I'll add them.

added @ 11:34 pm:
great collection of links on boingboing
and a del.icio.us tag

added 12/31 @ 11:34
American Friends Service Committee
pledge your ad revenue from January to BlogAid

To sign up to win a present off your wishlist from hedgesanta!

Don't feel shy honey it's not a sign of desperation or present-whoring. Just think of it as giving a crazy pet lady something fun and new to do. In fact, I've been having a great time looking at each wish list and picking out what I'd buy if I drew that name - good stuff of course! So this is actually quite fun for me!

Oh, and since I've been asked a few times about this: feel free to start your own holiday present drawing on your website I won't mind it's all for fun and present-giving.

Now go post your wishlist link in my comments! Or if you're not sure what the correct link is just have amazon email it to me at noelle@egeltje.org and I'll post it for ya.

I'm sure you read about the Wizbang Web Award brouhaha so I won't go into it too much. Basically it's an ultraconservative weblog that's hosting awards for weblogs decided by web-based voting. And people are out there striving to be the biggest assholes they can be in that special way that only awards and talk shows bring out.

Anyway, I just read of an alternative award thingie going on this month called Best of Blog (BoB) Awards 2004. The main aim of this one seems to be rewarding the smaller, personal, non-political weblogs.

Spotlighting the little guys. Who are usually my favorites anyway.

Frankly I love pink, knitting, mommy, fertility, adoption, redecorating, scrapbooking, look at my kitty cat weblogs. That kind of diversity in interests is what makes people (and their weblogs) different and fun to know.

The only weblogs (ok, and people) I can't stand are those written by clearly ignorant people spouting the standard right wing rhetoric without any new or original thought of their own and those with really bad, and I mean really bad grammar and spelling. I'm not talking about creative conversational spelling and literary style or little typos. I'm talking about people who clearly weren't paying attention in English class and use and instead of an or their instead of there. I'm no bastion of flawless use of the English language myself but damn I'm not that bad. I'm much more forgiving of weblogs where English clearly isn't their first language, of course.

The biggest bone of contention will undoubtedly be the "no political blogs" rule. I have no idea how strict they're being with this at all. But if they mean no blogs that talk politics at all ever there will be some really good weblogs left out. ** And no I don't mean mine LOL At this point I'm assuming I'm not qualified because I do post heavy leaning political rants sometimes. And I'm such a pottymouth I really wouldn't expect to qualify for voting nor appeal to voters. So I want you to know this is not a plea for a nomination m'kay?

**just got a comment from zeroboss one of the folks behind the BoB awards: It basically means no blog that is DEVOTED to politics, where politics is 50% or more of the content. I'll change the rules to reflect this. So Goodie! Thanks, Mr Boss!

I'm posting this because one of the complaints I heard a lot of people had about the Wizbang award was they didn't know when the nominations were happening therefore they didn't have time to nominate the ones they liked. So I thought I'd spread the word on this one.

They're accepting nominations from tomorrow, December 10th, until Christmas Eve, December 24th.

These are the categories:
Best New Blog: one created between Jan 1st - Nov 30th, 2004
Most Humorous Blog
Biggest Blog Whore: for the blogger who most aggressively markets his or her work across the blogosphere; the blogger who would (literally) do anything for a link. (LMAO)
Best Mommy Blog
Best Daddy Blog
Best Adoption/Fertility Blog
Best Book/Literary Blog
Best Sex Blog: the best blog that routinely talks about sex
Most Inspirational Blog: and they don't mean just religion. here's what the description says: the blog that most inspired you to keep on truckin' during 2004
Best LGBT Blog
Snarkiest Blog
Best Weight Loss/Fitness Blog
Best Knitting/Craft Blog
Best Cooking/Recipes Blog
Best Sports Blog
Best Music Blog
Best Poetry/Photo/Art Blog

Too bad they don't have a pottymouth category for the most creative use of expletives eh? That would be fun!

They have some really nice prize packages with hosting, design packages by the Ciao! My Bella gals, gift certificates, books, blog explosion points. And each category has a First and Second prize. Very fancy!

So go nominate some sites for these awards! I have some already in mind for most categories myself.

And best of luck to everyone :)

GIFTMIXER 3000 is funny and surprisingly accurate.

I signed up for secret santa thing but it just wasn't enough to get me into the holiday spirit.

So I had an idea last night.

I'm going to accept comments on this post until December 12th. Anyone who includes a link to their wish list to any store will have their name put in a hat. On the 13th I'll draw a name and buy a present from the wishlist (or send a gift certificate if there isn't anything on the wishlist that's under ten-fifteen bucks or you're in a country where shipping is going to cost a fortune). And hopefully it'll get to you in time for Yule, Xmas, Kwanzaa but a bit late for Chanukah.

Just my way of sending out a little love and commercialism to try closing out the year of fucking doom on a positive note.

So you've got a week to sign up. And don't forget to link to your wishlist! Or you can always be sweet and link to someone else's wishlist. And you can spread the word if you want to.

Coming this Sunday

Here are some random thoughts I've had about weblog doohickies today.

Why doesn't blogrolling allow you to have more than ten blogrolls? I'd be willing to pay an extra buck or two for a few additional ones rather than have to set up a separate blogroll account and pay ten bucks again. Not to save the ten dollars but to avoid having to migrate between two blogroll accounts.

Why does the 'find on page' function in Firefox 1 not search within text boxes, like for example the text boxes for templates in movable type? I know it did with 0.9.

Why is blog explosion more worried about the voters than the votees in this rating game nonsense? Why couldn't we have the option to choose whether or not we want to be rated (like we can with be comments) as Sam has suggested?

Why doesn't the category selection drop-down menu reflect the categories and sub-categories in Movable Type? Is there any way to list posts alphabetically in a category archive in Movable Type (apparently there is, thanks Mr Payne!)

Did you know that if you have a site running Movable Type or Blogger that Ciao! My bella designs is offering a free redesign if you link and contact them by October 31st? It's true!

I'm signing up for one because it's just one step closer to eventually having every talented designer out there make at least one skin for my site. For a while I was planning for them to all be based on the same image but it was getting dull so I'm shooting for some more variety.

So go see the Ciao! My bella gals and see what they can do for ya.

I'm getting ready to submit my pic to this year's Boobie-thon. I'm sure you'll know which one's mine ;)

Don't worry Mom and Nicole, it'll be in the "free" (read: prudes) section. To mangle a quote of mr man quoting that guy from seinfeld: mah girls need a house!

It's the smartest fundraiser to combat breast cancer I've ever heard of though. Showing boobs to fight breast cancer? Friggin brilliant!

I've been trying to get 100 thingies together but so far only have 49. I decided to post them anyway tonight on the memes log.

Oh I also donated my pledged money to Amfar in Luka's name and Heifer Int'l in Kym's for their great 24 hour posts for Project Blog.

Don't forget to go donate what you pledged folks that really was the point of all those caffeinated bloggers' hard work!

This Saturday several people will be posting entries to their weblogs every thirty minutes for twenty-four hours to benefit the charity of their choice. So if you have a little extra cash go over to project-blog, sign up, and pledge some of it to someone who signed up with a charity you like. So far I've pledged a few bucks to Luka (who's blogging for AMFAR) and Kristine (blogging for Heifer International). You don't have to send any money until they've blogged then you'll get information on how to send the money you pledged to the charity. Or you can sign up to blog for 24 hours yourself!

I would happily blog for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance but that's the day we must go to the Disney's Aladdin themed wedding. A whole new world indeed. The only other blogger who chose that charity also apparently blogs for Bush and I think that's icky. So just go send the charity money directly.