MarQ1

I got a shipment from elann.com today. I knew it was some #2 steel dpn’s I wanted for knitting a sock or two and six skeins of wool/rayon yarn; and when I opened it I remembered wanting those colors; but I have no idea what I wanted to do with that yarn. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t thinking of lavender socks.

I hate UPS. I’ll leave it at that.

elann.com uses USPS, fortunately.

I’m working on a restyling of this page. I like the colors, but find it hard to read.

I just updated my iPod software and suddenly my computer can’t recognize the firewire external drive. Maybe Apple ain’t so great after all. (I rebooted and it’s fine.)

Instead, I’ll by another Dell with a enough space to have both XP Pro and Linux. That’ll be a challenge.

On the knitting front, I’ve only got a foot to go on the scarf. I won’t need the fourth skein of the green. I could make a matching hat, but that would be just too queer.

I started the new hat this morning and I may have to restart it later. I tried a crochet provisional cast-on and the scrap yarn is significantly bulkier than the yarn I’m using. My tension isn’t what I expected, but I am getting the gauge I planned on; I’ll do a few more rounds and decide if I need to restart.

That woman on Semi-Homemade with What’s-Her-Face actually “made” chili with jarred spaghetti sauce. That’s just criminal. I wasn’t watching the show, mind you, but it was on in the other room.

TV chefs should stay away from opining on chili. Tyler Florence said Texans don’t use ground meat in chili. Since when? Some do, some don’t. This from a South Carolinian who still says hal-a-PEE-no. There’s a tilde there, Tyler.

I’m starting a new hat tomorrow: black sport weight alpaca with an occasional red stripe. It will be just a straightforward stockinette, I think.

The practice swatch I made suggest that the alpaca would make a nice sweater, but I’m not ready for that yet.

After the hat, socks. Or a sock.

I took the practice hat to work to show Mary (ha, ha!) the over-large thing; and Andrea actually wanted it. It didn’t mess up her hair. A slight “bohemian” look. Sorry, Goodwill, it has a home.

The upstater Gov. Pataki has a tourist promotion out saying something to the effect that “we didn’t invent winter, but we’re having fun perfecting it”. That must be why it’s 10 degrees outside with a windchill of -4.

Personally, I blame Canada.

Look. A new mug.

I woke up at 4:53, got a glass of water, checked how much snow we got overnight–a dusting–and couldn’t fall back asleep. It’s started up snowing again, but it shouldn’t last long.

Last night, I started a new skein on my scarf , adding it on by felting the ends of the two skeins. It was the first time I’ve tried it; it worked pretty well. The yarn was a bit thick at the join, but the pattern hides it. Added another inch and a half. Only 16″ to go.

I am seriously tempted to switch from a PC to a Mac G5. This thing I’m using, a 3-yr-old Dell, is perfectly serviceable, but it’s slow to start up and even slower to shut down, and I’m paranoid that the MS software will betray be.

But if I switch to a Mac, the software is expensive and programming for fun will be limited to HTML and Java (aargh); and Apple’s documentation makes Microsoft’s look good.

The Times is here. Time to make the coffee and read the paper.