na foine ting

We're all in this longboat together.

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:10:47 GMT

The road to Helheim is paved with good intentions.

Call me Sela. Call me Rusilla. Don't tell me I can't pick up a shield or a spear, don't tell me I prefer kitchen or hearth, don't tell me I want to play a "different" game, or that I'd be more willing to work in a company that caters to my inherent feminine need to have children.

I came to gaming because in role play, my character can pick up an axe and bash some heads in. Because she had martial prowess and was accomplished and fearless and desirable. She was someone I wanted to be, someday. Axe and all.

I came here because when I was a little girl I wanted a longbow and a horse and I wanted to smite some damned dragons, and the real world wasn't cooperative about providing that experience.

Allow me a sports analogy. Can I make one? Even though I'm a girl?

I play ice hockey with men. When I first started playing in this league, there weren't any other women. One guy asked me "wait, are women allowed to play here?" and they offered me my own locker room. Where I could change, all by myself, away from my team.

No, thank you.

On the ice, sometimes I deal with a weird chivalry, where guys will yield the puck or pull back on contact because I'm small, and a girl. They do that once. Then I take their puck away or hit them first and all bets are off and the field is leveled.

That is the experience I strive for.

I don't bring anything different to the ice by virtue of gender. I bring the same thing my teammates bring. Speed, aggression, desire to win. As a center I bring my exceptional faceoff winning, my playmaking and need to lay it all out there, every shift. This is about my temperament as a player, not who I am as a woman.

You need me in games the way you need all people in games. The way you need white guys and black guys and Asian guys and gay guys. Not because a black guy is somehow better and will lead you into a more civilized age. A black guy isn't the way to enlightenment. Neither is a woman. We're not special. We're not more advanced.

We're in the longboat with you, picking our enemies' corpses out of our teeth. We're on the ice, we're in the locker room, drinking beer with you.

The more we make of the differences, the more we fail to miss the point of integration. The more you emphasize my breasts on a video game poster, the more you reduce me to an icon and fail to render me a person.

I bring to a design team what I bring to my hockey team. My intelligence, my fire. My need to win, my ferocity. Yeah, sometimes I point out cleavage faux pas. But so do my male coworkers.

If you want me here, make my presence a foregone conclusion. Assume my belonging. Assume my access. Show me that this is an environment where I can be myself and contribute in all my best ways. Show me a driven, creative group of people that will value what I bring to the table, who will be receptive to my ideas.

Girls are allowed in hockey. They're allowed in video game design. Tell me, as many ways as you can that I am allowed and wanted. When I show up and I'm the only woman in the locker room, I don't want you to stop making rude jokes and making a sock puppet out of your jock.

All I want you to do is move your gear over, and make a space on the bench next to you

so I can sit down.

Desert, I

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 02:43:07 GMT

Crossposted just about everywhere... I don't have any pics to speak of yet, all on my MIL's computer and she's in Sudan so who knows. But here's some impressions.

The Desert, I

The worst fears I have involve things like this. A bite or some other thing going septic, swelling, becoming a spreading lesion. Necrosis sets in - I lose a limb. They don't get me to civilization fast enough, foreign doctors misdiagnosing and I go home in a bag.

Other people worry about losing their luggage, I suppose.

*

The sun cuts like a knife.

I'm wrapped, more or less head to toe. Long pants, a T-shirt and the light cotton scarf covers everything else, wrapped around my head, shading whatever of my face isn't already shaded by sunglasses. Even through the scarf, I can feel the sun burning my skin. I apply more sunscreen. I drink more water.

We are halfway up to the High Place of Sacrifice. I feel like the heat and sun are leaching life from me. I feel battered, wilted. Everyone else is bare skin to the sun's rays, and the kids are going along happily.

By the end of the day we will have hiked ten miles, most of it in the direct sun, much of it up and down rough-hewn stairs.

The sun will sink, and as it drops, I will revive.

At night by a fire in the desert, the children will run out of ghost stories. My daughter asks for an Ananse story.

"A new one," she says, as though I haven't told her all the ones I know already. I do what any good parent does. I make one up.

About Ananse, and Leopard, who at that time didn't have any spots and how Ananse wanted Leopard to cook him some stew and Leopard said no. And Ananse begged and begged and was such a

- excuse the expression -

pest that finally Leopard agreed.

"All right, all right, fuck's sake, Ananse," I said, though probably I said something other than "fuck." "I'll make you some stew if only you'll just. Shut. Up."

Then Leopard, thinking to teach Ananse a lesson, shook a huge amount of pepper into the groundnut stew. Then more.

Then more.

When Ananse finally got the stew he was so hungry he went to take an enormous bite.

I pantomime this for the kids, who can see me in the half-light of the fire, under the stretch of Milky Way and the perfect, vibrant, endless stars.

Then he gets the spoon to his face and sneezes

KA-CHOOOO!!!!

and pepper flies all over Leopard.

*

There's a rock wall with petroglyphs in the middle of the desert. The jeep pulls up and we pile out and cameras come out.

"Can we climb up?" I ask our guide, although M is already scrambling up the rock face with his camera to get a closer look.

"Go ahead," says the guide and I consider the climb, where to go, and the guide shows me how he gets up, and I go up half on his route, half on my own. It's never quite rock climbing, more of a scramble, but the sandstone is slippery and when I get up to the petroglyphs I feel like I've accomplished something.

I look at the images up close, and there's hunters with spears and figures with water jugs. M balances on a ledge and takes his endless photographs, gives me a glance to make sure I'm all right then climbs easily down. He's an older man, lives in Britain but is Argentinian. He's jovial and kind and also has a hot temper. One night he berated one of our Bedouin drivers for texting while driving, and almost making my mother in law fall out of the truck.

I pick a more careful way down; up was easy - down is harder. The guide helps me by pointing out a route from the ground if I falter, but no one comes up to get me. They know better.

Eventually I reach the sand and the jeep and everyone climbs in - we have a well oiled routine where I get in first then hold M's camera for him while he clambers in after.

The guide leans on the side of the jeep.

"I have to tell you," he says to me. "I've guided people to this spot for ten years.

You're the first woman to climb that rock wall."

*

We got home and the infection from the back of my knee had spread around, crimson, all the way to the front of it.

I spent several days in the desert, and swam in the Red Sea, snorkeled with it like that. My doctor had no idea what it was really but gave me horse doses of penicillin.

The swelling's gone down.

Our luggage arrived, intact.

*

We couldn't sleep, there were so many stars.

So many stars overhead it was vertiginous. I watched the Milky Way track across the sky, left to right.

The next day we rode camels across the desert.

That night we stayed in a five star hotel in Aqaba. We tracked sand into their lobby, where we stunk up the joint like camels while they handed us dainty glasses of pomegranite juice to drink while we waited for our rooms.

*

And that was how Leopard got his spots.

let me try and explain.

Fri, 13 May 2011 14:28:02 GMT

I felt guilty for a while that apart from work (where I write all the time), and the occasional other random thing, I haven't been writing much.

I haven't had anything published in ages - because I haven't been writing short fiction and submitting.

I had guilt about that, anxiety. Of my "generation," in terms of progress I've lagged behind. Lots of people I was in the OWW with and am still friends with have full fledged, successful careers, now.

And I knit, and make video games, and dye yarn.

OK, but look.
I'm happy.

That slideshow is of my first historical process dye lot, or natural dye lot. It's madder, mordanted with alum. It was a huge success and now I'm reading up on lichen dyeing and plan to go collect some lichen this weekend and do an ammonia extract of the plants and see if I can't get some decent colors. See what dyes my local landscape offers up.

It's wonderful, and amazing, and I am so content with it.

I can walk in the woods, and collect some lichen - using environmentally responsible methods, cooperatively with my environment and not as a selfish parasite - and then dye beautiful yarn that people will enjoy and make things with.

That is such a pleasurable process.

Then there's the yarn club.

Here's my process for May's colorway, called Blodeuwedd:

Fourteen skeins. I had thought I would dye four at a time to make it go faster, holding two in each hand and doing my kettle variegation that way, but a) the yarn gets very, very heavy and it's exhausting and b) I wasn't getting good quality. So I just did two at a time, which is my usual. As it turns out, I was able to do an efficient system and got through the entire dye lot in a couple of hours. The only thing that took time was the setting, but that's just the time it's on the stove simmering. I don't actually have to be there.

The results were amazing, and it seems like everyone who received the package is thrilled.

In the package was the yarn, some stitch markers in a flower theme (for the Blodeuwedd folktale), some scattered cloth flowers, the folktale and some art done by Taylor Fisher specifically for the story.

These are her illustrations.

They are amazing. She is amazing. And collaborating with her was fantastic.

I didn't just print up a story, I redacted a translation I liked, doing a bit of editing but keeping a good deal of the original text. I told the story more from Blodeuwedd's point of view, and used Taylor's art as inspiration.

The entire package was a creative process, start to finish, and I found it so satisfying. I'm happy everyone is enjoying it, and right about now any doubts I've had about not publishing these days? Have kind of faded.

This is good work, and being able to combine fiber and fiber arts and stories and collaborate with people is wonderful. It's paying for itself, and makes me and others happy.

Insofar as being a working artist goes?

I've decided that's kind of the point.

So there you are.

Beltane!

Mon, 02 May 2011 12:56:24 GMT

Here's our day at the Spoutwood Fairy Festival.

How was your first of May?

:D

Underhill - preview

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:08:46 GMT

This is the new yarn. If I can get more I may; right now it's just 10 skeins. This is "Roane" and "Tam-Lin." Up in the shop soon, just wanted to show you guys the total smooshy gorgeousness.

I have a life outside yarn, I swear...

Yarn club - last call

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:42:34 GMT

I'm actually about to close the yarn club out - by tomorrow I'll have a full group plus a couple of extras - actually more than I thought would sign up, which is wonderful.

If any of you want in and just haven't signed up yet, let me know ASAP and I will hold a couple of spots for you.

Right! On to the weekend!!

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:41:44 GMT

So first and most importantly, it is my lovely wife's birthday today. Happy hippy hoppy birthday, kimatyza!!!! I love you!!!

*

Second, the yarn club is filling up... over half the spots are spoken for already and I can't really do much over 10 people I don't think. Whoa! I'm really excited. I've seen a draft of Mary Anne's folktale, and it's absolutely fantastic. SQUEE!!

Thank you to everyone who's been signal boosting. It's been great and you all are wonderful!

*

I'm in the mood to write but am super busy. Plus I've been waiting to get the Futurity website fired up but don't have the time or bandwidth to set it up right now. Halp!! Now what??

*

We're going to Jordan at the end of May, with a bit of a pit stop in Istanbul beforehand. I spent a lovely evening night before last with my MIL finding Kürkçü Han, which is the "yarn courtyard" of the bazaar area. I would shout out directions to her from an out of date map, while she flew around in Google Earth telling me there was no street like that, that couldn't be right. It was almost as good as the real thing. I felt like a Secret Service agent making dry runs of the President's convoy or something.

B will be taking a cooking class there, at a swank Turkish hotel literally around the corner from where we'll be staying (eschewing the swank Turkish hotel for a cheaper but very nice apartment since honestly we won't be in the room much anyway). One of the things she may be learning to cook is one of my favorite dishes, which I've known as "Red Sonja," and it is one of my favorite dishes ever. It's basically just little red lentil patties but is SO GOOD. We eat them at Mundo, which if you are ever in the Astoria area, ZOMG. You must go try. The food is amazing, I am deeply in love with half the waitstaff and it's one of the few restaurants I have ever felt truly comfortable having my kids at while having a leisurely, European-style (as in 3 hours at the table and a lot of sangria) meal.

Anyway, Red Sonja FTW and next I talk to you about it I'll know the proper Turkish name.

Speaking of, reyl and other Arabic speakers... what are my essential Arabic phrases for when we're in Jordan? All I know is as-salaamu 'alaykum. Which gets me in the door but not much farther. :D

Oh!! ETA to add the Jordan itinerary. This is designed for kids and mine are beside themselves with excitement. G is very, very into the Crusades right now so this is really for him, and he is absolutely thrilled. We fully expect him to go native, lead a rebellion and never leave.

*

This weekend is a party for B, and if you are local (or even if you're not), you're invited. Saturday at 5pm, roll your own sushi and gaming.

Sunday I work on a test knit I signed up to do in a moment of total insanity. A shawl. Really. Test knit. But it's gorgeous!! LOL

What are your plans??

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:12:03 GMT

From the comments:

"One of my favourite songs. Reminds me of a girl friend when I was young. My mum went to see the statue of the Lorelei on her rock in the Rhine.

She said It's a bit pornographic. Then again, I don't suppose you would crash your ship for a nice girl in sensible shoes."

colorway - SCIENTISTS

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:41:24 GMT

OK, here's what I've got so far.

Kepler - parchment tan and dark ink brown
Curie - radioactive green. WHAT?
Hawking - deep space midnight blue and chrome grey
Newton - apple red and dark ink brown
Sagan - deep space midnight blue and Cosmos logo orange
Goeppert-Mayer - computer paper green and dot matrix grey

LOL

OK, make up some more.

and we say?

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:53:20 GMT

View Poll: jury's still out...

ROFL

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:13:52 GMT

A few misadventures in dyeing last night, including very expensive alpaca that may or may not resemble uncooked liver a little too closely for anyone's comfort. Also I dyed my hands red... normally I don't put my hands in the bath at all, or by the time I do, it's very dilute and it doesn't stick to my hands.

Last night, though, I saw how fast the blue was striking on the alpaca and plunged my hands in to grab it out and then so on and so forth, and all the blue was gone (it was on the alpaca) but the red? Plenty of that, still. LOL. Look! The yellow of the light makes it less impressive than it actually was. It's faded some today, thank goodness.

Then in my infinite wisdom I put more of the same dye into the pot. So what could then happen? Oh, you know. More blue could go to my yarn that was supposed to be rich burgundy.

This is, as I said on Facebook, one of the really interesting things about dye. Primaries that make up a blended hue will behave differently, and then differently again depending on the fiber you're using, how it's treated (like if it's superwash), and even the ply or how it's spun. One of the things I've learned is that in a hue like a deep grape where there's a lot of blue and relatively little red, I can really get some subtleties because the red strikes the yarn later and I can really control how "rosy" the yarn gets. In the opposite direction, though, it's much trickier.

My alpaca was blue and then a bit... reddish blue. Something anaemic looking. LOL

But look what exactly the same process did to wool superwash! That's the color I was actually going for, that deep reddish wine. Then I variegated out to a lovely dusty rose. It's really, really pretty. But damned if it did nothing like that on alpaca.

I am loving the alchemy of this. I love that it's a learned process, and also a tactile process. It's also an artistic process. I like the dice roll aspect, I like that there's actually some risk, although mistakes can be fixed somewhat.

Anyway, good stuff.

I should have a bunch new stock in the shop after the weekend's dyeing, probably a dozen or so new skeins and many new colorways. If you want anything custom... ask me NOW. :D

Japan - and Yunnan - charity auction

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:50:35 GMT

I'm participating in this with some yarn. Go donate, bid.

Here's mine, but there's a ton of good stuff there.

well... OK!

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:57:42 GMT

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who responded to my wee pity party the other night. Particular thanks to those who flirted. It was perfect. :)

But also all of you, and *hugs* all round.

* * *

Now, let's see.

I've been tagged!!

A. People who have been tagged must write the answers on their blog and replace any question they dislike with a new, original question.

B. Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.
madtom_o_bedlam (also hi you!), dyddgu, spike7451, aerinha, lab_jazz, ummmmmm... sarabellae, ummm... I dunno. Whoever wants. ;p

1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up:

Spotlight in the windowsill with his tail hanging down the wall
A niddy noddy
Spotlight on the couch
Folded laundry (and lots of it)
A not-completely-eaten candy neckace

2. How do you style your hair?

Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
(repeat, about once an hour or less)

3. What are you wearing now?

My moose pajama bottoms and a plum sweater tunic. Red, and plum. I AM fashion.

4. What's your occupation?

Video game designer

5. What do you hear right now?

Tinnitus, as usual.

6. Who was the last person you hugged?

The Gavinator.

7. What is/was for dinner?

Heh. Um. Well. About fifteen baby carrots as a vehicle for hummus, and a huge spoonful of Nutella. :D

8. What did you do today?

I... hm, that's confidential. And then I... doh, also confidential.
I wrote a... oh. Confidential.
Oh, and then I started this really cool

thing
I can't
talk

about.

:D

Then I came home and G and I attempted to do the Rock Band challenge we can't get through and couldn't get through it again but we had fun. Then L and I did some Beatles. You have not lived until you've seen L screeching out the lyrics to "I am the Walrus," man.

9. Dog person or cat person?

Not hungry just at present, thanks.

10. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?

I did change it, or rather everyone else did. Kate. :D

11. What was the last thing that you bought?

Postage for my Harry Potter Ravelry group swap partner's awesome swap package. I put a lot into it, I hope she likes it. She's a college student, and in the midst of finals so hopefully it's a good happy stress-reliever! :D I *love* swaps. My swap partner spoiled me ridiculously. OMG. Look at all the awesome stuff! My favorite was the project bag she made, look!! It has plumeria on it! The theme of the swap was the Weasleys. :D We were supposed to put together a package of all handmade or secondhand items (like we always include yarn but you were encouraged to choose something from your own stash). It was really fun.

12. If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

LOL Well. You know. No, in all seriousness, Samoa. I miss it so much.

13. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Lead writer for a game. Like a really really good game with good writing.

14. Where's your birthmark?

Don't really have one!

15. What are you doing this weekend?

Going to a frogging party with owlchick... and housework, yard work for spring. Oh, and probably lots of dyeing.

16. If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?

I can and do, all kinds. :D

17. What's one thing you wish you could tell someone right now?

You know, if I got something to say, I say it. Oh! OK, here. I wish I could tell Jeff Friesen what he started, and how grateful I am to him for the last 7 years of hockey. How's that?

18. What is/was your favorite thing about today?

Lili belting out Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower! Hands down.

feeling

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:11:38 GMT

... super undesirable right now.

3 8 11 dyelot, skeined. :D

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:49:36 GMT

These will go up in the shop today. If you want first dibs on any of them, give me a hollah and I won't even post them up.

meh.

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:51:52 GMT

First game in a while last night.

I've been doing this stairmaster challenge with C at work... going up and down the stairwell stairs. We started at 4 x 4 flights. Sixteen total. As of last week we're doing 10 x 4 and let me tell you forty flights of stairs is pretty hard core. The goal is 80.

I thought somehow with all this stair work, I'd get on the ice and fly around like Superman.

Honestly? Not much changed. N did an amazing sharpening job on my skates - the first 7/16 I've had in a while that actually felt like it's supposed to, fast on the flat, and a tiny wicked little knife of a cut on the edge so I can turn on a dime. It'd be awful for defense but it's good for forward, if I could, you know. Manage any jets whatsoever.

This "slow" epithet my captain stuck on me is sticking with me and I asked last night if I was faster and he said yeah a little but not near where I should be and after years of hustle being my best asset, it pisses me off.

I have a million excuses. Old, feeling sick today or allergies but I think I'm coming down with what the kids have. But the hell, you know? I want to be faster. I want to be better.

Ugh.

playing with fire - this weekend's dye lot

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 01:10:13 GMT

Here's this weekend's colors, with emphasis on WARM and also WARM thank you. Can you tell I'm ready for winter to be over already?

Not pictured here are a rose and pink laceweight that went to miss H, whom I visited Saturday and went to WOO HOO Mannings with. I also have a lovely blue variegated that I need to re-skein and will post up when I post the final skein pictures. Eos, by the way, sold, so I did dye a similar skein but these will tend to be one of a kind. So, yanno, fair warning if you like something have me put it aside for you.

Also, if you're wondering, that very very very very long skinny skein that's in two separate pots then two separate parts of a steamer divided by foil is my first attempt at self-striping yarn. It has very loooooooooong colorways (about the length of my dining room in fact) and goes purple to seafoam and back again, through a very pale, nearly white pastel of each.

The yarn is the most beautiful yarn I've yet worked with - it's a 60/40 angora/wool blend from Norway and I'm completely in love with it. I hear that it's being discontinued and that is a shame because it's gorgeous and takes dye fantastically and is ZOMG soft.

The Saga of Biôrn

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:03:58 GMT

"Who is this Viking, and what made him throw a dwarf off a cliff?"

Augh! Clarification.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 03:57:56 GMT

I was going to go answer all the comments individually and then I realized I'd be saying the same thing to everyone.

Dude.

If I cut people for not commenting I would be the biggest hypocrite EVER. LOL

I've gone weeks and weeks without posting and longer without reaching out to friends on here and catching up and talking a bit to them on their posts so ZOMG it's not about that.

It's a more ongoing thing I had where it was months on months and I was making overtures to people who really had no interest in my friendship. This is different than people I know here who are new friends or casual friends who I met and we went O cool let's be LJ friends and then I look at their handle and think "wait, who is that?".. or people who rarely post on their journals or comment anywhere but I know they're there and we have fondness and it's just of a very intermittent or flakily distant variety

- but that's different. I'm talking about where I had concern and affection for someone but they had not the least bit for me, which is completely fine, just not how I want to conduct my relationships, if yanno what I mean.

I'm all for unconditional love but -

No, actually, no I'm not.

:D

Bit of spring cleaning

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:41:55 GMT

So I made some flist changes today...

I realized there's a bunch of people who I read and comment on who kind of don't notice I exist, which is futile on my part unless reading them is really worth the effort for some reason.

I'm not a huge fan of one-way friendships and someone wisely said to me yesterday to not love people who don't love you back and that is wicked smart.

Also one of the people I had friended posts several times a day about themselves and frankly I'd rather see more of you all and less of them. LOL

Also if you are reading this and are one of my frequent-posters, do not be alarmed. If you're still on this list even if we are not super-chatty, I still feel like you give a shit and we're cool. ;p

Legion - where Famine arrives in an ice cream truck

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:17:17 GMT

OK, so... I was apparently desperate and also love Paul Bettany more than I love good taste because I watched Legion last night.

And it was so.
Desperately.

Bad.

Mostly.

And movies like that make me really pissed off because if they were uniformly bad then I could just hate them and not watch them, but this had, did I mention Paul Bettany in it, and then it had some great moments like Famine getting out of an ice cream truck (also best use of Turkey in the Straw doppler effect EVAR), and some decent dialogue here and there and also

Paul! Bettany!

As the archangel Michael. Which was so very hard to resist. Because wow.

And mostly I was happy to hang with it because it takes place at a truck stop and there are some decent-ish moments and Paul Bettany, OK?

But then we got to the scene with the "and I went into the clinic and was going to just get rid of the baby and then I HAD A SIGN AND KNEW BETTER"

oh god, really? In my Armageddon movie where you GET ARMAGEDDON WRONG???

And then the ending was so despicably awful I wanted a plague of locusts to come so I didn't have to watch it.

Look. You can't play fast and loose with Revelations and then get all in my face pro life. Really, movie. You can't have it both ways.

Meanwhile, Paul Bettany was trying to play Michael the Archangel as written for Clint Eastwood, which he managed sometimes in nearly brilliant ways and then sometimes you can tell he just.

Gave.

Up.

Moments worth seeing include a somewhat gorgeously shippy exchange between Michael and Gabriel, the aforementioned We're-not-calling-him-Famine-because-we-mostly-skipped-the-Horsemen-Part and some of Michael's monologues. I also genuinely like the "God was tired of your fucking bullshit" premise.

Anyway. It's uneven. It's probably not worth seeing except Paul Bettany's in it as Michael and I'd probably sit through it again just for that anyway.

What shall I watch next?

Eek! I did it!

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:29:12 GMT

Okay!

So emboldened by all of your squee and ooh and ahh yesterday, I went ahead and put up yarns on an Etsy shop. There's just a few right now, with more to come sooooooon.

A Hundred Ravens!

All friends get free shipping. Like, forever.

I will also send you coupons if you are like ZOMG MASSIVELY WANTING EVERYTHING, with some price reductions for I MUST BUY EVERYTHING IN THE SHOP.

I'll post when I get more up there. Also... a poll!!

View Poll: YARNS ZOMG

some of this month's dyeing!

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:34:35 GMT

Here's some yarns! :D

smile

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 12:59:58 GMT

This will make you grin today.

I'd never encountered Stephen Torrence before. Total win.

randoms

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:54:19 GMT

We've been watching Spartacus and now Gods of the Arena. I was not prepared to love Spartacus as much as I did (yes and I know the rest of you saw it coming). The writing was so very, very bad the first couple of episodes and then suddenly something happened and it was OK and then great and it's all cheesecake, right? Violent sexy cheesecake and unapologetically so and then also everyone slips up and shows their NZ or OZ or OMFG Samoan accents and I roll around in bliss because did you notice they are also

NAKED?

Andy Whitfield's cancer makes me heartsick. I want him back and part of my antipathy towards Gods of the Arena (so far - we've only seen a couple of episodes so don't spoil it for me) is that he's not there and also somewhere he's struggling and just, you know. And I already know that Crixus turns into a colossus and massive badass and so I'm not buying him cringing because for a start he's too damn big to cringe.

Don't discuss too much in case spoilers or put spoiler alerts on your posts. I think the show is kind of unexpectedly brilliant, mostly because it's no holds barred and because no one's done anything really like this, that I've seen. And it's a fortuitous combination of talent, maybe. And the accents. And the nakedness. Or maybe it just pushes ALL OF MY HAPPY BUTTONS simultaneously. Anyway, discuss.

*

My coworker and I are doing this stair challenge, at work. I hate that I do no cardio apart from snow shoveling and hockey ALL WINTER LONG, mostly because of outdoors being so crappy.

So we invented the Stairmaster Challenge, which has nothing to do with machines but is where we climb the stairwell stairs of our building three times a week. It's six flights. We started out at four flights four times. (That's sixteen flights, for the math impaired.) As of this week we are up to ten flights four times which yes, is a whopping forty flights and my thighs are iron, yes, thank you. I had expected to lose more weight but since it's not an actual goal of mine per se, the fact that I haven't isn't too disappointing.

Cardio/air/muscle improvements are there, though. The end of the challenge is 4 x 20. I think by then we will have quads like anvils.

It's a good solution for the winter slack, though, and surely all this legwork will translate into speed and general improved fitness for hockey?

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Rock Band.

This is a really good invention. The problem with video games is that they have gotten increasingly isolating unless you count the online interactions which I grant you I do. But really, MMOs notwithstanding, people are shut up in their rooms playing alone a lot, and so Rock Band is particularly awesome.

Because we're all "come over and play this video game with me."

I come home at night and I'm tired or frazzled or crabby and I can just say "ROCK BAND" and the whole family dumps downstairs into the basement and we do some Blondie or some Lenny Kravitz and suddenly we're laughing and/or cursing and high fiving each other and/or waiting patiently for someone to choose the color of their boots already.

Everyone can play together. At their level. This is beyond awesome and also I play bass standing up and dancing around so it almost counts as not sitting on my ass.

Do you play? What's your instrument? I'm bass all the way but then it's easy for me and so I'm starting to creep my way through Hard and a few Expert these days but mostly I'm a Medium if I'm being perfectly honest. That Lenny Kravitz song is really the best. Or that Donnas song. Crap, I can't remember it.

Ah... here!