Love,
Your Funny Valentine :)
(and now the citation for the pic... darn MLA indoctrination)
"UR So Sweet Nom Nom." ICanHasCheezburger.com. Access date: 14 February 2008.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/01/23/funny-pictures-ur-so-sweet-nom-nom/.
I finally finished my Christmas gifts - and, yes, I do realize that it's now into the month of February. Lucky for me, the recipients of said gifts reside in the far reaches of New England. My Aunt Elaine lives in upstate New York, in Watertown (or thereabouts), and my grandmother lives in VERY upstate New York: Peru. When I heard that my Aunt's region had received more than three feet this winter, I knew I had some time to spare. Technically, I didn't really, since Christmas gifts are usually, that is to say, traditionally given on or at least near Christmas, and I've extended that deadline a little beyond the pale this time around.*
But at least I finished two little projects!
First, a k1p1 rib neckwarmer for my Gramma (modeled here by my lovely colleague-who-must-not-be-named):
And for my Aunt Elaine, who is a snow-mobiler extraordinaire, a warm headscarf/earwarmer thingy from knitty, called "Calorimetry". Two models this time: myself (pic #1) and my reading colleague Joy (#2 & #3):
fig. 1
Typical "headbands" always slide off my big head, so the stretchy rib and wide band of this one is perfect. Yay!
fig. 2 & 3
Doesn't she look ready to brave the winter winds? My favorite part about this headscarf is that if the wearer has short hair, curly or straight, the scarf won't "flatten." Likewise, a long-haired girl like me can wear a pony tail and still keep the old ears warm.
Now, for my dad's deliciously warm (and fast) seed-stitch scarf. Not the greatest pic in the world, but red it weirdly hard to photograph:
Luscious,thick, marvelous "soft chunky" from Twinkle knits. Yum!
And on another, other note...
I also started using DPNs yesterday, for my first pair of socks. No pics yet... not too many rows yet... but I have hopes that my confused fingers will learn to deal with four needles at once.
Bryan wants some warm, soft, bed socks, so I chose a pattern that calls for some baby alpaca. What Bryan wants, Bryan gets. Sometimes. :) I took (dragged?) him to Main Street Yarns last Saturday to pick his yarn, and he chose a very masculine charcoal gray. I'm having the time of my life figuring out sock knitting, and I must send a million thanks to the amazing Amy at KnittingHelp.com. She's outstanding!
Happy Knitting!
~~
*Note: If you visit my blog for the spectacular wordplay and lexical nuance, then today's post will disappoint you. I'm awfully sleepy, but so proud of my finished projects that I had to share anyway, regardless of inept semantics. Or something.
I figured out a workaround for my Yahoo! avatar (to the right, there) image. I think that sometimes programmers, in a well-intentioned effort to help the less-savvy consumer (or blogger, in this case) have a more streamlined experience in techno-communication. Thus, the new blogger templates with "widgets." Call me old-fashioned, and nerdy, but I found the classic HTML templates much easier to use, since I could actually see the code I needed to fix or change. I wasn't great at it, but at least I could figure out the location of the issue.
This question, of course, brings me to an issue in the personal computer war that I have spent much time considering: Macs vs. PCs for people-friendly interfaces. Here's the thing: PCs represent (or used to, anyway) a sort of technology designed around the geeks of the world: those users that were versed in regedit and dos (do you remember Tandy's first "desktop" program?! So. Cool. I spent hours playing with those settings.../sigh. The old days) or at least those users adventurous enough to just dive in and figure it out. Macs, on the other hand, were specialized, right from the beginning. I remember when "Apples for Education" was all the rage and the cute rainbow symbol was a marketing tool for less expensive, less powerful, less geek-cool Apple computer. Now, that same Apple logo is translucent, or white, a representation of the graphic friendly, architecturally clean Mac.
The PC is powerful, cheap(er), ubiquitous, and generally easier to "figure out" for even mildly competent users. For instance, if I want to make sure that a program has been completely cleaned from my system, I can easily access the registry and search for log files to delete, etc.
The Mac, also powerful, costs a whole lot more, and I have yet to figure out how to fix my darn machine if anything goes wrong. Interestingly, however, I've had my laptop since 2003, and it has NEVER crashed. Ever. Not a blip. I have had problems, however, on a more hardware level. First, the ultra-cool battery adapter that came with the system had an overly thin cord that wore through in less than a year, since I had to wrap it to keep it in my laptop case. On the Apple website, a new one cost nearly $100. On Mac Mall, I got an off-brand for under $40. It's still working. Second, my screen is doing this weird thing, as if the inner wires are not connecting properly unless I set it exactly perfectly. Thank goodness for PeachMac.
But it's so pretty... and I will insist that the Expose feature, along with amazing overall stability and incredible graphic/video capability (and the pretty), make the Mac a special kind of machine. I just hate that I can't fix it myself if I wanted to.
It's kind of like owning a Volkswagen. Oh, wait...
I guess I'm a sucker for pretty.
Have a Happy New Year's Eve!
You might be a cat owner if you laugh at this:
I laughed until I cried, but only because of the similar agony that Galaxy and Xander subject me to every morning.
I'm back! I'm trying to eat right, exercise, the works. After talking to the now-famous Mel (the Yarn Harlot blogs about her!!) I have decided that part of the plan for fitness must also include accountability. So...I'm going public. I have a link on the left, under "kicking" for my diet/fitness info that I will update daily.
Funny thing - when the world will have a record of one's eating habits, it's really tough to grab that handful of peanut-butter M&Ms and chow down.
If you're curious, check it out. Otherwise, keep moving. Nothing more to see here.
Happy Wednesday!
