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Secret Life of Lobsters

Secret Life of LobstersMaybe I was pre-disposed to liking this book — there are lobstermen in my grandfather’s generation off the coast of Nova Scotia — but I really found this book to be so fascinating that I couldn’t put it down for days and finished it up quite quickly.
Of course, I love to eat lobster. One of my favorite birthday gifts is when my husband orders from Maine Lobster Direct and has them send me a DownEast Feast. My great-grandmother used to send mittens and socks to us kids, and canned lobster meat for our parents for Christmas.
I never knew anything about lobster in any context outside of dinner, but this book leaves nothing much to the imagination. And it makes it interesting! Who knew?
It discusses the mating dance between the males and females, and the conservation efforts the lobstermen were doing independent of the government scientists that were telling them it was all going to be gone if they didn’t stop. Still more scientists were working on figuring out where the lobsters go throughout their lives. Meanwhile, the catch keeps going up each year even though the government scientists are telling the lobstermen that they were overfishing. The lobstermen had to prove, to themselves at least, that they were preserving the next generations of lobster. If they didn’t do that, they would be out of a job, and what of their business could they hand down to the next generation?
The story flows from the shore to the boats to the pots to the labs and keeps you turning page after page. If you are looking for a quick summer read that might teach you something new, maybe this is the book for you. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Headphones

smHeadphones.JPGI have these great headphones. They still sound good after 6 years, and they have a really long cord so I can roll around my whole cubicle at work while still connected. They were very inexpensive, but about a year ago, the foam pads that protected my ears finally fell apart.
I have been using them “naked” since then, but they always were very uncomfortable that way, which made my ears hurt and made me listen to music less.
Then last week, at Stich n’ Bitch, I had a great idea – why not knit some covers for the things? I have a ball of some imitation Cascade Fixation that someone gave me a while back, it seemed like a great candidate with it’s stretchiness. I started thinking about how I was going to get started on double pointed needles on such a small and stretchy, fiddly thing when it hit me… Crochet!
I am quite rusty, but I figured, it’s just a granny square without the corners, right? How hard can it be? Well, they didn’t quite come out perfectly shaped, and they are a bit lumpy on the edges, but they get the job done. I was amazed at how — even though my mind didn’t know what to do — my hands knew what to do, and I ended up with some decent half-double crochet ear pad thingies. They are quite comfy too. I highly reccomend it if you find yourself with decent headphones and no foamy covers for them.
Thanks to whoever shared the yarn. Was it Sandra?

Battlestar Galactica

Are you watching this? If you are, I am sure I am just preaching to the choir. If you aren’t, what are you waiting for?
I know what you’re thinking… I do. That’s what I thought too, when I first heard it was coming back. But I was wrong.
smBGBook.JPGNow, I watched the 1970’s version. I was, like, 10 or something, and it was the coolest thing I ever saw. We named our dog “Muffy” after Boxy’s dog. I had the book. Here it is, I still have it, from 1978. I was remembering it from my 10 year old brain. I was in love with Starbuck. My best friend loved Apollo. It was perfect. A few years ago, when the re-runs were on, I tuned in hoping it was as cool as I remembered. It wasn’t, it was super-cheesy. Especially when they were down in the pyramids with those falling blocks of stryofoam. I was so sad.
When I heard it was coming back I thought, “Oh no, how can they remake that? It’ll be cheese – the next generation!” I thought it was a horrible idea. Then I saw the previews for the miniseries on SciFi Channel. I programmed my Tivo to pick it up and forgot about it, and then suddenly it was here and I watched it. And I thought, “Wha?! They can’t just stop here, this is SO GOOD!” And thank the Lords of Kobol, they didn’t stop there.
No Cheese!
It didn’t have all the things I always complained about when watching the Trek shows. It didn’t have a happy ending. The ships didn’t all fly as though space was flat, the ships approach from different angles. This is different. Six is HOT! Baltar is crazy and HOT! The characters interact like real people. It’s got the long term-story arc that I loved about Babylon 5. Nothing is neatly wrapped up at the end of each episode. The characters are familiar, but all new. By about episode 2, I started caring about the characters, wanting to know more. That’s something I never had with shows like DS9 or Voyager. I never cared about those characters. When there’s an episode that lingers on one storyline for a long time, I find myself wondering what’s going on on Caprica or Kobol or… or…
Some things never change, and Everything old is new again
Still got Apollo, Boomer and Adama. We still have Starbuck, but now she’s a girl, but Starbuck is still hot! Still got the octagon paper, pyramid games, cigar-smoking Starbuck. Still got Centurians, but these guys are way scarier than any stormtrooper-wanabe 70’s Centurian. The first time you see one flip overhead, in person or in a ship, it’s just amazing. There’s no Boxy, actually no kids and mechanical dogs at all… yet. If I have to complain about one thing, it’s this – where are the hot male cylons? And really, that’s not so much to complain about.

Book Signing

A couple of years ago, she was someone who (whom? why don’t I know this? NH Grammar failure!) I thought should have a blog. Not because her writing was bad, but because of the gushing that followed each posting. This was shortly after I started knitting, before I found my home on certain mailing lists because of being annoyed by others. So, she did finally get a blog, and I didn’t actually read it for a long while, mostly because I hadn’t discovered the beauty that is RSS yet, and blogrolling was just reminding me of how much I haven’t actually updated this blog.
Eventually I found a nice newsfeed client, then switched to Bloglines since it’s more portable, and added her blog to my feed and once and a while checked in but mostly ignored it because I tend to get distracted by shinier things. Like, two weeks ago it was Harry Potter.
So there I am at BORDERS, and I am looking at the “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” table for some summer reading, and I come across this book (by the way, the other purchases in this transaction were and , and ) and I thought – hey, that name sounds familiar…! So I picked it up and laughed out loud and brought it home with me.
Some folks in my local Stich n’ Bitch mentioned going to her book signing, but it was on a Monday which isn’t usually a convenient day for skipping the carpool, but the huz wanted to do some errand that made us have to drive separately and so then I could go. When I got to the store, I ran into some other people from my SnB, not the ones who I expected, which is normal for California.
Do you ever see someone out of context and completely know that you know them, but when you see them, you have no idea who they are? This happened to me at knit cafe yesterday. This woman is talking to me, I completely know who she is but can’t figure out who she is… Finally she says “Skylar‘s mom” . Oh, I am so embarrased. Especially since I was just mentioning how cool it was that Skylar and her mom started coming to SnB.
spm.JPG Anyway, we got that all sorted and had a great time at the book signing. Stephanie is a wonderful woman, just as approachable as she seems by reading her blog and book, and I had a really good time. Retelling some of the stories to my huz the next morning has him even more convinced that I am actually Canadian – I even knew the answer to Stephanie’s secret question to check for authentic Canadians. He accuses me of it all the time, what with the BNL and GBS fandom. Oh and the Frü-fannage.
So this picture is of Stephanie holding up a sign that says “Happy Birthday Sue” so Sue, there you are. No one seemed to know who Sue was, but Stephanie can follow directions. Sorry Stephanie, that you were so cruelly tricked by the Knitting Factory.

Baby boom or what?

There are so many babies popping out everywhere, and I see big bellies everywhere I go, so it’s no surprise I have been knitting on some very small things.
Presents for AVA.JPG
For my niece, who was born first in my circle of baby boom, I made these lovely prezzies: A sweater of my own design in Baby Ull, a teddy in a bunny suit from a Debbie Bliss pattern, done in Falk and Baby Ull, and finally some mini converse so baby can be just like dad, also knit in Baby Ull.
Presents for WYATT.JPGFor my nephew, who was born next, a sweater re-gauged from a Debbie Bliss pattern in Classic Elite Flash (i think), another Debbie Bliss bear in Falk and Baby Ull, and some creamsicle booties also in Baby Ull. Mom likes Orange. I haven’t actually seen him in person yet, but the photos look promising. He may come south for a visit in August, which will be nice.
Presents for AKWB.JPG And for a coming attraction, whose parents are planning to be surprised at the birth, a sweater of my own design in Cotton Fleece, which I have used before for baby sweaters and I think is quite nice. This is for a girlfriend at work who I am really going to miss while she’s out, but can’t wait to see the baby once he’s here! (Yeah, I think it’s a boy, but red looks nice on a girl too!)
I hate boring pastel-ly baby stuff, so I went for bright and colorful. I hope the moms like the stuff as much as I did knitting them!
I have a few more little things for the new babies, but they may wait for xmas gifts or something TBA.
There you can see my Anacondas snow globe on the right. Scary, isn’t it?

Musik non-stop

The whole reason the computer thing was bugging me was that I want to fill up my iPod and every time I got half-way through a disk the computer would re-boot and what a pain it is to figure out where the rip left off?!! I use MusicMatch to rip because it’s faster, then link to iTunes for the import. But ooh, I am happy now, between last night and today, I have ripped all my cds from Paul Weller, the Jam, Tears for Fears, Michael Penn, and Kraftwerk. Before tonight I had only 7.1 days worth of music (2446 songs). I have room for 30 more GB of music, and I am not even close to ripping my entire CD collection. And I am not being picky, I am ripping whole cds, not just the good tracks.
And did you know this is back? Kraftwerk:  Tour de France I had no idea it was back in print (the last song on this otherwise NEW!!! album) and I just bought it off iTunes because I know I will like it. And I am listening right now and I do love it. It’s one of those concept albums, like Autobahn. And for the record… I loved this song long before I met my Huz… I had it on a mix tape I had taped off the radio in what.. 1986 maybe? Of WJUL which I could get on good days up in my New Hampster bedroom, all the way from ULowell. Good times… :sniff:

I started knitting this

Shapely Tank using Gedifra Aragona. It’s a strange yarn, two variegated plies. One is cotton-ish, the other, some nylon/acrylic stuff. The cotton is very pale and pastel-ly, while the nylon is jewel toned colors. The cotton has only 4 colors, and the plastic has maybe 10 colors, and they repeat at different intervals, making a really nice confetti look to the fabric. My swatch didn’t shrink at all, which I guess makes sense if they are plying two materials together it would really suck if one shrank and the other didn’t, leaving a loopy crappy sweater. I am halfway up the front, having just finished the increases, and on my way to the short-row shaping. I am amazed at the simplicity of this pattern. No hand-holding here! She just says increase here, decrease here… no mention of what type of increase to use. In other words, think for yourself! I know, I know, a novel concept for most Americans. ahem.

I bought some books

Shadow Puppets because I am reading this Shadow of the Hegemonon my palm via Palm Reader, and am finally getting into it. I loved the other “Ender” books, so if you did, you will dive right into these, I imagine. I must say that reading on the Palm is odd, and even though it’s with me all the time, I don’t think to pick it up like I do a paper book.
Plus a Marion Zimmer Bradley/ Diana Paxon book, one of the Avalon ones but I don’t remember what it was.
Most of the next few were bought in the Hurt Books sale, so they were half price. Knitter's Stash: Favorite Patterns from America's Yarn Shops This one came with a bunch of errata which was nice of them to include, instead of me hunting it down off the Interweave web site.
Folk Vests: 25 Knitting Patterns & Tales from Around the World I don’t really even like vests, but I do like some of the patterns, especially the cover one.
Folk Socks: The History & Techniques of Handknitted Footwear There’s a few cute ones, but I probably won’t make many of these.
Christmas Stockings: 18 Holiday Treasures to Knit Now this was just silly. I want to make some xmas stockings but needed some inspiration on the scale of them, so I bought this one thinking it might help. It might.
Meg Swansen's Knitting This one is nice, I like a lot of the patterns, and can see using this as inspiration.
I keep waiting for good stuff to show up in Crafter’s Choice, the crafty book club. Most months I just toss the flyer, but once in a while something good comes along:
Knitting on the Edge: Ribs, Ruffles, Lace, Fringes, Flora, Points & Picots It’s likely that I will get more inspiration for xmas stockings from this book instead! There’s lots of cool stuff that I can see for edging a plain sweater that will make it really nice. Maybe my first design?
I got this one while trying to figure out what to do with a Barnes & Noble Gift Card. I was always curious about the concept, and can see some uses for this technique. Domino Knitting by Vivian Hoxbro
I just started reading this: Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson I loved his other books, so I have been waiting and waiting for this one to come in paperback, but I couldn’t pass up a slightly crinkled used copy for only $10 at a local used book shop!
I started reading this last week, but Quicksilver took precedence. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
If anyone has any suggestions for a good (and paperback) sci-fi type tome that would make good plane-trip material, drop me a line, eh? I used to have a roomate that read books/week and so I would read what he was done with. Our tastes mostly aligned, but without my sci-fi buddy, I haven’t been very adventurous.
Why is it ok to spend so much on knitting books that might suck, but not sci-fi? I guess it’s more work to figure out that the sci-fi book sucks, but not really, if you knit something and then discover the pattern sucks. Hmm, I guess I need to re-think this one.
I think I need to make a list of the books I have read — recently, at least.

computer issues

A few weeks ago, my computer started having all kinds of problems, and rebooting randomly after only a few minutes of use. This was very unusual for me, since I don’t download (steal) music, or have any of that spy/adware stuff that hitches a ride with a lot of the free software out there. My firewall has never been down, my Norton AV updates daily (or it did till all hell broke loose) so I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. My huz installed one of those spyware finders on his machine and found hundreds of trojans and other crap, so he tried it on mine also. It found only two, but they both use the same port that mail software uses to talk. One of them may have been used for those spammer p2p networks that make me sick. Needless to say, I have cleaned up, and things are much more stable as of today, so I can actually have the machine up long enough to compose a post!
What have I been doing? Shopping, mostly.