Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

• Grar knitting related injuries got me down. Ibuprofen take me away! #
• I just watched Buffy's "The Body." Amazing, amazing television. #
• This might be my favorite letter in the whole world: http://bit.ly/fGD7Fx #
• Dear New York Times: A "Semi-automatic machine gun"? WTF? (But it sounds REALLY MEAN so let's print it.) #
• Ooh, that bad old witch-girl, Maggie Barnes! She's naughty! #
• The dead possum props from the children's Christmas pageant is so jolly. #
• Way to agree subjects and verbs, me! #

• Madam Mams has failed me! A "G" is not a "P" and I did not want this curry. Wah. #
• The deadline for the Unfiction Sekrit Santa exchange is upon us! If you want to be included, please get with me ASAP! #
• Nachos fix everything. #
• A yodeling pickle. http://amzn.to/eLEicK #
• My daughter came down from bed, complaining that our Labrador Retriever was chirping and/or purring in his sleep. #
• Sinking feeling: when you realize you messed up at the beginning of an 86" long scarf that you just finished blocking. #
• Sometimes you set out a worm and you get a nibble from a whale. #
• Got my husband worms at the candy store. BBQ flavored. #
• Other scores from the candy store: Wacky Packs and candy cigarettes. #

• If I never have to put camper sheets on again, it will be too soon! #
• You ate it, Ralph: http://youtu.be/VFKifpMtlNs #
• Can't even shout, can't even cry. The gentlemen are coming by. #
• Never tweet when you're doing five other things at once. #
• My hair stylist rocks my world. #

Jimmy Stewart recites his ode to a dog named Beau.

(Please pass the kleenex.)

• Some people started singing it not knowing what it was… #
• Man, I hate it when the Spaniards steal my technology. #
• On a serious Buffy binge. Why have I never watched this show before? #
• Someday I'm going to whip up a batch of these chocolate chip pecan cookies… made with bacon grease. http://bit.ly/9RaYYO #
• My husband is planning a Buffy intervention for me. Five episodes a day isn't bad. Well, six. I can quit whenever I want. #
• How we spend our Friday nights: making sound effects for How It's Made. #gettingold #

Most Kindle books are wonderful, and I adore my Kindle. But I’ve recently run across a book that was scanned in and not checked for formatting or scanning errors, and it annoys me. It’s a novel called The Land of Laughs I ran across in the comments of a Boing Boing story.

So here’s the note I sent to Amazon about it:

Comments:Dear Amazon -”

I just wan- tecl you to know that the Kinclle version of #8230;The Land of Laughs -” a Novel is riclclled with stray characters, scanning issues, and other prob- lems that eat away at the enjoyment of reacling a good book.#8230;

This mess- age might be a little over the top…” but it’s representa- tive of the types of errors founcl in the text.#8230;

I got a response back a couple of hours later saying they have asked for it to be corrected and would let me know when a new version is available. Cool!

• Colt McCoy runs from zombies? http://bit.ly/b7G7ec #
• THERE IS NO ANDREW AT THIS NUMBER I DO NOT WANT YOUR ONLINE COLLEGE COURSES LEAVE ME ALONE #
• A wasp got in the house and my mighty hunter kitty tried to eat it. Guess who got stung on the lip? #
• Kitty is sticking his wasp-stung face into the air conditioning vent. Pretty smart, that kitty. #
• Apparently Andrew DiCarlo gave out my cell phone number when applying for some crappy debit card. If I meet him, I'm going to punch him. #
• Other people's children are so cute. #
• There are some real gems in this ST:TNG photo album (Klingons knitting! Data + Stephen Hawking!) http://bit.ly/cfo9MR #

Girl’s tie front bolero

Originally uploaded by addlepated

I made this out of Wollmeise Twin in the Spice Market colorway.

This was a really, really miserably written pattern that I bought for $6 because both kids wanted a shrug made from it.

Imagine my horror when I downloaded the pattern and realized that it was knit in five separate pieces, all flat! Even the sleeves were knit flat and had instructions like, “Working 16 row pattern as given for 4th size of Back starting with 9th row of patt counting first and last inc sts as one st on inc rows worked on Back. Work 64 rows inc in st at each end of 9th and every foll 8th row, working inc sts in patt. 49 sts.”

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN??

Friends and neighbors, I pondered on those two sentences for two hours. An hour per sentence. And then, I said to myself, “Self? Why are we pondering on this? Let’s write our own sleeve pattern! We know what stitch count we need!”

And damned if I didn’t write my own sleeve pattern.

Bolstered by my success, I went on to adapt the body pattern to be knit flat so as to avoid having to seam up the sides. I’m currently working it this way on the second shrug. So far, so good. I have written up my extensive pattern notes on my