Take to the sky

... or at least have a good look at it.

I just saw a beautiful image on today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. I recommend that you click through to catch the photo in its not stolen full glory, as well as catch a few tidbits offered by the crew at APOD.



The photo is of Comet Lullin, which is quite visible tonight, with a pair of binoculars or a telescope. A little more information can be found here (via @scifri).

I'm quite fond of stargazing. I used to want to be an astronomer, until I learned how much math was involved. (I can do math, but I don't particularly love it. Words and languages are, for the most part, friendlier.)

When I was little, my dad used to take the family out to some dark location, hauling his binoculars, a tripod and a camera with a long-exposure attachment, in case he decided to take a photo. (Once I got in trouble for opening the car door, activating the dome light, while he was taking a photo; I'm pretty sure I not only ruined the exposure but got a little yelled at as well.) We've gone comet watching on a few occasions, and I think this would be a nice opportunity to do so again.

Tweeting around in my head

Twitter. I do not use it. However, I have recently started subscribing to certain RSS feeds of certain Twitter users, just so's I can follow their tweets.

It started innocently enough, with Felicia Day and Dr Horrible. Then I saw that Unclutterer has one, which I call TwUnclutterer. And then Ravelry and Amy over at Knitty got Twitter. And then Felicia made a list of authors who use Twitter. I learned that Neil Gaiman has Twitter, as do Stephen Fry, John Cleese, John Lithgow, and Wil Wheaton.

As I was skimming tweets Monday morning, I noticed that Wil Wheaton had sent a tweet to Brent Spiner, and then somehow I got to Levar Burton. I have a Trek trifecta! How fantastic is that? (I'm such a dork.)

But I'm still going to stick with the Plurk.

Edited to respond to binerman's comment: I have a clan of knitters on the Plurk. And FYI: xamonster.


Foremost in my mind today, however, are two phrases: "President Barack Obama" and "former President George W. Bush". Tuesday was a good day for the country.

My toesies, they are ice cubes

Now that the cold and snow are here, the value of knitted items has risen exponentially. I was thinking this morning, as the icy air went rushing up my bootcut pant legs, that the time has come for legwarmers. I kind of love Lusty Lady Legwarmers, mostly for the buttons. I'm pretty sure I can devise my own pattern, or do a quick search on the Rav and come up with a bajillion results.

Yesterday I wore a number of warm items: a list of what she wore today: knit hat, sunglasses (to keep out the wind), scarf from Turkey, mismatched knit mittens, knit armwamers, one oversize wool coat, two pairs of socks, two sweaters, two shirts, one cami and a pair of jeans. Yeah, I was ready for the chill.

Also, Winter 08 Knitty was released today, and their server is being dragged into oblivion. Already one of my co-workers has asked for Fish Hat, and the Miittens really crack me up, and I kind of want to make them for my brother.

And I changed colors on the blog and added a Plurk thing. Other than that, that's all she wrote.

And now a message from our non-sponsors

This commercial break is provided in part by Neil Patrick Harris and Jack Black.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Hairspray composer Marc Shaiman (whose boycott lead to the resignation of Sacramento's California Musical Theatre creative director Scott Eckern following his donation to Prop 8) wrote and conceived this hysterical short piece (presented with a wink and a nod by the 'Sacramento Community College Players'), which was directed and staged by Hairspray director and choreographer Adam Shankman and features plenty of folks you will recognize.

Shaiman plays the piano. Jordan Ballard, Margaret Cho, Barrett Foa, J.B. Ghuman, John Hill, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Rashad Naylor, Nicole Parker star as 'California Gays and The People That Love Them'. John C Reilly as a Prop 8 leader, and Alison Janney as his wife. Kathy Najimy as his second wife. Jenifer Lewis as a riffing Prop 8'er. Craig Robinson as a preacher. Rashida Jones, Lake Bell, Sarah Chalke as Scary Catholic School Girls from Hell. Katharine "Kooks" Leonard, Seth Morris, Denise "Esi!" Piane, Lucian Piane, Richard Read, Seth Redford, Quinton Strack, and Tate Taylor as The Frightened Villagers.

Jack Black stars as Jesus Christ, and Neil Patrick Harris is billed as 'A Very Smart Fellow'.

words from Towleroad

Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging. I have only one thing to say at the moment: my shoulder hurts. Boo.

Now with massive linkage!

Aside from Ravelry, I've been watching a bunch of other fun sites. They're not the knitting kind of fun, but they're good, quality humor. I created a folder on my feed reader called "mental-tainment," which was the best description I could come up with yesterday. Here's what's in that folder ...

• the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks — my favorite is Sellersburg welcomes "President" George W. Bush.
• I Can Has Cheezburger — you should see the invisible series.
• Crummy Church Signs — "Stop, drop and roll don't work in hell" (sic).
• LOLgaimans — similar to I Can Has Cheezburger in that picture captions are in LOLcats form.
• lowercase L — CHIlES Y CHOCOlATE took me a long time to figure out.
• My Crazy Roommate — enough said.
• Passive Aggressive Notes — may the sanctity of the sink prevail.

If you're not all distracted by my eight billion links by now, I'd like to tell you that I cast on for the second Eagle's Flight sock. Not that I finished the first, but I wanted to do them at roughly the same time. Unfortunately, I lost one of my sock-length US 2 dpns and only have four for the set. I remedied this by using those four plus one US 1 needle. I read somewhere (Knittyboard, maybe) that you can do that and it won't make that much of a difference in the long run. I'm thinking that 2.25 mm and 2.75 mm are close enough that it will even out. And it's a sock, so it doesn't so much matter. Anyway, I think I have about two inches of foot done on each, not including the toe. Good progress!

I thought, since I was doing so well, I might make a Minisweater / Boobholder, since they're not entirely unflattering despite my, er, fluff.

Oh, and I got through all of the goals on Super Mario World, which switched the theme to what can only be described as "Halloween world." I only have two levels now where I need to find the Yoshi coins, and it'll be officially done.