Things that made me L to the OL recently

- This, which describes Usher's head as being shaped like a butternut squash... the most apt comparison ever.

- The fact that R. Kelly finally has a grown man's haircut, as noted by this blogger.

- Aboard the SS Redonkulous.

- "For really exciting penetration have your man thrust his arm directly through your torso and kind of blend into your back."

- From Ask Metafilter, a question about bathroom facilities on a roof. Best answer: "Maybe it's time to stop inviting Razak to parties."

- Ugly cupcake cakes, actually anything on Cake Wrecks.

Vote 4 Scout

Hey, remember Scout and Piper from my dogsitting stint? Aubrey's mom says... "Scout and Piper are in this photo contest, and the winner gets a discount on the next class. Please help finance Scout’s advanced puppy class by going to this site and voting for Scout!"

The contest is here: http://ahimsadogtraining.com/poll/photo.php

In that picture, Scout is staying put while Hazel is in the water chasing a float. That's pretty good staying! Could YOU do that at 5 months? I doubt it.

Please vote if you have a moment!

When you're R. Kelly

Despite the fact that I'm mildly obsessed with R. Kelly, I hadn't seen Trapped In The Closet until just yesterday. I had heard it was a million parts long, and for some reason I thought that the whole thing lasted hours and hours and I felt like I just didn't have the time or energy to commit to that much R. Kelly madness. I also mistakenly thought that it was a story told via a bunch of different songs, rock opera style - and again, I couldn't muster up the level of commitment it would take to parse through something like that.

But as it turns out, each part is short, and features the same music over and over and over and over and over! It's not really made up of songs so much as it is a rambling narrative told to music. And it's really way crazier than anything I could have ever imagined. I have so many questions... but I actually had to stop after part 5 because it got too intense for me. SPOILER ALERT, I called it that the guy his wife was sleeping with was the cop: I thought it was a curiously specific detail to mention that the cop flicked his cigarette away when they were on the side of the road, then later when he smelled cigarettes in his bedroom, I KNEW. Robert insists his audience's detective skills be honed sharp!

Anyway it's been over 24 hours and I still don't feel ready for the rest of it. But I will continue on, someday, and you'll be hearing about it.

Today, Rich at FourFour posted this amazing R. Kelly interview. My favorite thing about this... is everything. I feel like I should be transcribing this just in case it does get taken down. Seriously, my favorite part is where the interviewer mentions that people around R. Kelly, such as his manager and brother, have expressed concern about his behavior, and Kells tries to brush it off like everyone who speaks out against him is someone who used to work for him, but was fired and now has a chip on their shoulder. I'm concerned, and I'm pretty sure I've never been fired by the Pied Piper of R&B.

Interviewer: But your brother Carey... was not fired, he's still your brother.
R. Kelly: He was fired.
Interviewer: But he's still your brother.
R. Kelly: Doesn't matter. He's still my brother, but if he's still my brother, why did he get fired? [He says this with a tricky, master-of-logic look]
Interviewer: Why DID he get fired?
R. Kelly: I can't get into that.

Also - "Do not listen to the people that was fired. Don't even listen to the people that was hired!"

I'm... trying to?

Describing Usher's head as being shaped like a butternut squash is the most apt comparison I have ever heard.

I'm having a rough time lately with Life Stuff, so I have been sublimating my FEELings by keeping constantly busy working on various projects. Also, apparently, by eating ice cream and Internetting in the middle of the night.

Project highlights!

- Fingerless gloves for dad, using this pattern and some of my beloved lambswool.
- Alpaca hat for mom, pattern not online.
- Little things like this baby hat for Afghans For Afghans. Pattern here, easy and cute.
- A cross-stitch inspired by Subversive Cross Stitch. I did up my own pattern, and it's pretty simple, but I find cross-stitch really boring so I never want to work on it for any extended period of time. Right now I could literally be done with it after 10 minutes of dedicated stitching, but the reality is that I probably won't pick it up again for a while.
- And my current favorite thing, GIANT SHIRT. I bought a giant shirt!

O'er the ocean

Here is a picture of an exercise my dude and some other folks put together recently (see also picture of the day here, or front page article of the most recent and sort of adorable Penny Press):


Meanwhile, here is something I observed this summer on Lake Union:


It's the Duck Navy! Five in front, and three way in the back, on the very right side of the picture. They rendezvoused and conspired under the shade of a tree, then suddenly all charged out in formation and went cruising around. I though they looked pretty sharp, but C. had this to say:

"Their spacing is a little lax. Not indicative of their seamanship at all."

What they lack in seamanship they apparently make up for in entertainment value, as later on I got another email from him on the topic...

“I took your photo of the ducks and invented a tactical signal (using existing doctrine) that would order the other ducks into station off the first one, the guide...

The first duckie (on the left) is the guide - as if he were the underway replenishment ship, or the ship the others come to to get gas and stores. Then there's one on his STARBOARD QUARTER (behind him and to the right) who would be in 'waiting station', waiting for the oiler to call him alongside. The one directly behind him is in 'lifeguard station', hanging out behind in case any peeps fall overboard!

Then I wrote that the two at the top of the picture were Iranian Navy, coming close to get a look and see what we're doing.”

Lambswool yarn

Last weekend was very hot by Seattle standards, so naturally, I bought a sweater. J. Crew, men's XL, 100% lambswool.


I found this amazing sweater while at Goodwill with Matt, seeking crafting materials. This time it was... knitting materials! Form of: a sweater from which yarn can be recycled!

The best part about the sweater, other than the overall good quality and minimal wear, was...


...the seams! Perfect for RIPPING OUT. There was not a single serged seam. For information about why serged seams are no good, please read here or here. I found those websites useful in showing me The Way. (cue music: Clay Aiken's "The Way")

This week, I have been living in a yarn factory. I rip out yarn, organize it all over the floor and couch, wind it around the backs of chairs, tie it up so it doesn't tangle, soak it in the sink, hang it in the shower to dry and straighten out, dry it further on a rack by the window, do some math to figure out yardage, twist it into skeins, etc. So much wool to work on! Yesterday I was finally able to consolidate it all in one place to take this picture:


So that shows the current state of the sweater. All that is left of it is the entire back, seen here folded in half under everything else. On top are some assorted pieces to be joined together, and - my pride and joy - skeins totaling 970+ yards of wool.

Later I will tackle that back piece that is still intact. I wonder how many hundreds of yards I will get out of that? Oh yeah, did I mention this sweater was half off at Goodwill, so it was maybe two bucks? Two bucks for this much wool yarn... you will find such a deal NOWHERE ELSE.

I should note that the reason I am suddenly interested in working with wool is that I want to make some items for the Afghans For Afghans humanitarian effort. Maybe some baby and childrens' socks, hats, mittens, etc. They only accept wool due to the challenges of the climate where the items will be sent.

EDIT: I almost forgot! Last weekend my mom gave me another sweater to recycle. This was an alpaca hand-knit cabled sweater from somewhere in South America, and she bought it decades ago at a boutique in Tokyo. When I was a child, she purposefully washed it in hot water to shrink it down to my size. Now I am big, and the sweater remained small, so it was just sitting in a drawer for years. The sweater is shrunken, but not felted together, so there's life left in that yarn yet. First thing I'll make is a winter hat for mom, the yarn seems to be handspun so it has interesting texture.

I'm learning a lot about sweater construction from taking these apart. Here's a picture of a sleeve, filetted open.


After being wound in a ball, the yarn behaves itself despite it's crimpedness, so I probably won't soak or straighten this out, I'll just wind it up and use it right away.

Dog-sitting

Last weekend I had the pleasure of dog-sitting for Aubrey's mom's three dogs while she was out of town. It was a lot of fun, and I was glad to be back in Seattle proper for a bit.

My new friends are Hazel, Piper and Scout the puppy.


We had an excellent time! We chased tennis balls...


And chewed on our feet...


And dragged slobbery squeaky toys into my bed and squeaked them suddenly and unexpectedly as I slept...


OK, so those things were mostly the dogs' doing. But here is an activity I was definitely involved in: Peeing a LAKE on the floor right before bedtime. Technically, the actual peeing was done by a dog (I never did figure out who), but I was definitely involved as I cleaned it up, and as I was navigating around it in the dark of midnight because the POWER WENT OUT.

But seriously, the activity I was most involved in? A little thing called FRIENDSHIP. Here's how you do it!


Aww. I'm glad we got to keep each other company this weekend. More pictures here!

Visual aides

To get a pretty fair idea of what my time in Idaho was like, please listen to Sugar Hill Gang's Apache while watching the following:


Marcus gets down:

Traveling

I was sad to leave Marcus and Stu yesterday after I had such a good time visiting them. I rode Greyhound from Idaho on my way back home, and before I left, I joked around with them about being murdered by a drifter while traveling. Haha! It was funny then, but um... kind of less so now, based on this recent incident in Canada: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/01/canada

"We heard this blood-curdling scream and turned around, and the guy was standing up, stabbing this guy sitting next to him repeatedly, like 40 or 50 times," passenger Garnet Caton told the Canadian press.
...
The severed head of the victim, described as in his 20s, was then displayed to the stunned passengers.

Holy CRAP. I'm glad the only frightening person I encountered was a guy with a swastika tattooed on his arm, who was openly discussing his criminal record. His other tattoos included a shotgun, and other stuff I couldn't make out because I was really, really busy minding my own business.