Obsession=poissonne

I find myself unwilling to write anything, but desperately craving a reason to go to blogger.
To feed the fish.
The not-real fish to your right.
The gadget some genius made that makes me wish it was a leetle more in-depth so it could completely replace my need to keep the betta at home. (Noro. He knows he's replaceable. I keep him for his prettiness, and I can get another if he decides to kick off. The last one was named Noro also, as will be the next.)

I already have a foster home lined up for him, I think.

Things to consider: possible background that looks like a riverbed or fishtank bottom, or a screen from Frogger. Cute little mouths to nobble at the food. Optional tank decoration (those cave things in colors that even ravers would blink at). Breeding possiblities! Tails, coloration, completely unrealistic breeds! I could spend days at this. I am not lying. I have completed decades in various Harvest Moon incarnations. I lust for a Wii not for its strange and interesting controls, or even the variety of disney-tastic games, but merely for the Harvest Moon option of raising ducks, geese, chickens, sheep, goats, and OSTRICHES! Natsume, if you could just get on the Chocobo-breeding ball, I would dedicate years of my life to carefully breeding interesting colorations of all available animals, desperately seeking the elusive gene to give my llama wings or allow my chicken to lay decorated eggs.

Also, as most humans, I am interested in this AdSense thing. Why yes, I would like you to give me money for absolutely no vested energy in return, as well as filling up that embarassingly bare space to the left of my blog.
However, I would like to select the advertisers, or at least the products that will be displayed. Knitting or anime things, but not shoelaces or that godsawful "mom's secret" tooth cleaning discovery or waistline adjustment feeding schedule/supplement (normally called a "diet"). Can we do that, Google?
I mean, here is my blog, and thanks, but if we're pretending I'm in charge, you can't take the keys away when we get to the car.

Flapper

3:09 pm. Will post letter momentarily instructing possible sock-test sock recipient on how to measure biggest part of foot. Will also begin heel flap on next "knit break"*.

*Hey, I don't smoke, but I still think I deserve occasional breaks just as a smoker would. Just because I'm not chemically addicted to anything doesn't make me less of a lazy asshole.

Perfectionism at work?

I find that I don't want to blog unless I have a picture that illustrates what I'm talking about.
Example:

1.) I'd like to ponder the reasons some persons prefer the 2 [circular] needle method of sock knitting. I use one really long needle, and can't see the benefit of using two, unless it was the bonus of having a second needle in that size for emergencies. Still, I feel I need to show my position with photos. Edited to add: It seems that my method is the "magic loop" method. I still feel it is easier to knit with ONE circular in the dark, especially if each side of the sock is using a different needle. My mental image of two-circ socks is a tube growing vertically between two opposite-spinning wheels. Interestesting, perhaps even Seussical, but not practical.

2.) I'd like to discuss day 4 of the sock test-knit, and illustrate my preference for the "slip-replace-k2togtbl" method of making a "ssk"-ish left leaning decrease.

3.) I need to post my awesome Star Trek photo, but I have to scan it somehow first. Brace yourselves for a photo of a photo.

4.) I am reviewing a Devil May Cry complete box set, and the interior DVD cases feature a heapin' helping of crotch each, though I suppose it is meant to showcase the gun in the character's hand? This is too weird for me to not document it for the masses.

TV land is so...organized.

So I'm listening to Hulu right now, which I use as a work-aid, to keep me from overhearing the conversations from the other (recently closer-sitting) employees.

Monk is on, and I am thinking not "Oh no! What will Mr. Monk do! Certainly he can solve this case, if anyone can." but, instead "Wow, that's professionalism!"

The 'victim' discovered that someone was trying to kill her on her way to a book signing. (I'm 2 minutes in, so she can have one mark around the word, but neither actual quotation marks nor a complete lack thereof. I grew up with Scooby-Doo. In the absence of a elderly, uneducated recluse, always suspect the second new person introduced on screen.) The very book signing Mr. Monk is eagerly awaiting. He discovers the crime not via her arrival from the sky like a weird Mary Poppins, pulling herself from an impact crater, charred and disoriented from a car bomb liquifying her organs without puncturing her with shrapnel. Rather, the crime is suggested when the bookstore owner judisciously (sp?) informs his customers of the cancellation due to attempted flash-fry. First I think: Wow, that could have been said with more respect for the victim, but he is clearly someone easily swayed by sensationalist news announcements. Then: Hmm, I wonder how he knew. He saw it on the news, so he assumed she wouldn't appear? Or...did a wonderfully organized publicist take a moment between arranging the health insurance claims of the author to drop a quick phone call to let everyone know the evening's new schedule? Where I used to work, I doubt we'd get, or even expect, such a call in the wake of an attempted murder. These things regretfully and understandably fall to the wayside for about 12 hours when you almost become pasta sauce, but now this woman's publicist is not only prompt, but her professionalism is saving face for the bookstore as well. (We would've spent the evening repeating "We're not sure why they haven't arrived, but we hope all is well and they get here soon to sign a book for you and the rest of the ungrateful masses, I mean, customers who could clearly never steal, ruin, break-and-reshelve, or let their children smear feces on the wall." Hooray fictional publicist!

Full of fail

1.) I went online to post some things, and ended up completely caught up in Ravelry.

2.) I knitted a sweater a while back (now finished) and had to knit an entire sleeve a second time for reasons related to gauge (see photo).

(Not obvious enough? Try comparing the apparent relative size of the circular part of the pattern. Still no? Fine! The ribbing, let me show you it)

(Both sleeves are knit with the same needles. Promise. Same number of rows, also. Y'know, for that professional "I can follow a pattern" look.)

3.) I worked diligently on a lovely purple sock, only to discover after my fun-filled family vacation that I was supposed to knit into the back of all knit stitches. Perfectionism demanded that I frog back to the un-scrogged parts. (In order retain some of the awesome star trek goodness, I surmised that completely frogging the sock was counterproductive, and kept as much of the original intact as possible.)

3.5.) Then, today, upon my trip to a coffee shop to pass along some workflow to a cohort, I discovered that I have left the sock (now reduced to ribbing and half of a pattern working, when I had completed the HEEL TURN before discovering my pattern misap) at work. I am considering fetching it, but am forcing myself to face the literal reality that I need the gas more than I need that sock to be with me. Here, now, tonight. I could always cast on a lacy scarf or something.

Abillion.) Oh yeah! Fail number abillion! Eldest brother, K, has giant feet. I, however, wanted to knit some socks for his birthday worthy of his victorian-era christmas letter. Unfortunately, my brain does not equivocate big feet with pattern scale, so I have ambitiously chosen Eunny Jang's Bayeriche. Which does not look like it will fit onto giant feet. I will have to, therefore, alter the pattern signifigantly in order to ensure even the possiblity of wearability.

And more words that end in -y.

Damn.

Start-itis sounds much better than Starti-itosis

So I finished my fair isle sweater, down to the lack of blocking (which I will consider doing only after soaking a handful of the trimmings into both hot and cold water, and then eyeballing to ensure I can still pick out "white" from the group). And my Francis Revisited is truly, TRULY chugging along due to the huge gauge.
And the huge needles I required to get gauge.
And the constant remeasuring really wants bigger needles, but I have my limits. I get nervous the farther away from the original designer's needle size I get. It's like walking down parallel hallways. Everyone else took that hallway, but I have to go on this one, and I can't see to judge if I'm getting close to where they ended up or just headed straight to the boiler room door.

But now I have to decide what to knit for Smiles [K]! It has to be portable, for maximum sister time, and it has to be awesomely absorbing, or I'll lose interest hundreds of miles from my stash of other yarn. And it should also be...simple? So I can take a few brain cells away from holding the plane aloft during the flight to knit it without puking on the passenger next to me.

(Why did you think planes stayed in the air? Physics? No! People like me who use the entirety of their brain power to keep the plane in the air!)

I'm thinking of using the time to knit Krefto's socks. In a manly grey. With limited design? I'll ask what he'd like before I start, if I remember.

I am the phantom disagree-er.

It's me. And I'm not shy of admitting it, here at least. If I admit at the scene of the crime, not only would I lose my mystique (I'm Batman.) but it would defeat the very purpose of disagreeing without owning it. I am punishing you, after all. Using means available to me, and keeping safely away from your 6 square reach on that touch attack of enraged mad-freakout.

When you're a douche, when you are crazy judgemental, when you join the "I Heart Cats" group and say "yeah, but dogs are better. In fact, cats are lame." I'll be there. Like Darkwing Duck. I am the disapproval that comes from nowhere.

When you've really upset me, and I feel that a public forum is not the place to have a logical discussion with someone who's obviously so far beyond crazy that crazy can't see you anymore, I look up your Ravelry profile. Then I click on "posts", then I hit every post you've ever done and disagree with it, just to be sure that you know someone hates you with every fiber of their being. When my anger winds down, I stop. Sometimes I don't get beyond 8 or so posts. Sometimes I get through all of them. (Those are the real dirtbags.) Then, when you bitch about the phantom disagree-er, I laugh and wipe a tear from my eye. It makes me happy.

I just wish it caused you some physical pain.