Quote for the Day

Nothing is more impressive, in our time-poor era, than the man with time and attention to spare for others. --E. Jane Dickson

One Sock Down...

Musetta Agrees

The snail's on the thorn

Song, from Pippa Passes, by Robert Browning

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven -
All's right with the world!

The Sock Cont'd

I'm not sure if I like the way I did the shaping at the top, and won't until I try on the finished version, but otherwise this is coming along nicely. The yarn is SO COMFORTABLE. These are going to be perfect on autumn evenings, curled up on the sofa...knitting more socks.

I think I've finally gotten a handle on that hold at the gusset join -- did it correctly with a twisted stitch on one side, then did it wrong on the other, so I grabbed a crochet hook and fixed it. You know how sometimes you need to get it in your head, see the whole thing in your mind before it really clicks?

Hopefully, I'll be able to do the same thing for the class on the 29th. I'm working up these socks in a step-by-step pattern, with pix. If the class likes it, I'll make more copies to sell at the store.

Attention New York Times: Duh

I worked at About.com for ten years, and it went through a lot of changes, but none, I think, as pervasive as when the NYT bought the company. It didn't seem like it at first, but slowly the company changed, finally to the point that it and I were no longer a match. I miss About, but the About.com I miss no longer exists...which is why I have my own leetle corner of the Web now, at Scifix-ile.com.

Anyways, a recent article lends further insight about The Times, particularly how the newspaper doesn't really seem to "get" how the Internet works.

From - here

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight tonight.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site.

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said.

--

And so I say again unto thee, NYT: You didn't know people don't walk through the "front door" of a Website by first clicking on the front page? Duh.

Heaven and Hell

Today I'm getting to do one of my all-time favorite things: knit and watch football. Football is the best thing on the tube to watch while knitting. Everything is narrated, and important stuff is replayed, so if you can keep 50% of your gaze on the knitting without missing anything. So, my fave team, the Saints, are playing and I've got a great sock going...I'm in Heaven.

And I'm in Hell. 21-0, Tampa Bay. What is this? Saints defense is the suck, and the offense couldn't get anything going except one drive that stalled out for a missed field goal kick. Duce isn't being used at all, Reggie's most impressive play involved the ball's popping out straight up during a tackle.

Oh, well, the second half has started. Maybe I can upgrade to Heaven and Purgatory.

It has been raining ALL DAY

It rains a lot in this town, sure, but yeesh! I work up this morning to heavy thunderstorms, and here it's eight hours later and the rain has not stopped. I may be dry here inside, but looking out the window at the water-gray world for so many hours has made me feel sympathy soggy.

Fortunately, in addition to all the work I have to keep me busy, I'm working with some fabulous yarn. Doesn't it look like a confection?

It's Fiesta's Baby Boomerang, which is wool, superwash, sock weight. Knitting with it is heaven. I'm making, of course, some knee-high socks.


I haven't done knee-highs before, so I had to make a couple tries before I got the increases done the way I wanted. After that, I'm planning a heel-flap heel and your basic stockinette foot.

Coffee

Why is coffee so wonderful? Seriously, I totally didn't like it as a kid, and in college, actually, I drank tea. Wonderful pots of loose-leaf tea that I would mix up myself...often in preparation for a very long night of studying. You know, a pot of oolong and a Snickers bar, and I was good until about 2 AM.

Then I had some blood sugar troubles and couldn't deal with caffeine for a long time. When I could drink whatever I wanted again, I tried to get back into tea, but somehow I started drinking cappuccinos, and...coffee.

Delicious coffee. So warm in the tummy. The perfect way to wake up.

As you can see, I'm a PJs girl. In New Orleans, you either drink PJs or CCs. Yes, there are Starbucks all over too, but we think of those as sort of foreigner places to go. I don't like Starbuck's coffee, myself. It tastes burnt. But then, I have friends who think that PJs tastes muddy. CCs tastes like paste, IMO.

But, whatever. Mmmm. Coffee.

Dreamland

"Our schoolmaster used to take a nap every afternoon," related a disciple of Soyen Shaku. "We children asked him why he did it and he told us: 'I go to dreamland to meet the old sages just as Confucius did.' When Confucius slept, he would dream of the ancient sages and later tell his followers about them.

"It was extremely hot one day so some of us took a nap. Our schoolmaster scolded us. 'We went to dreamland to meet the ancient sages the same as Confucius did,' we explained. 'What was the messages from those sages? our schoolmaster demanded. One of us replied: 'We went to dreamland and met the sages and asked them if our schoolmaster came there every afternoon., but they said they had never seen any such fellow.'"

Decisions, decisions

The fourth season premiere episodes -- the first two are parts two and three of the cliffhanger -- came a couple days ago, and I watched them and was IN HEAVEN. I can't review them yet for the site...where is that letter?...do I just have to say WOW. Way to go!

But the thing is, review copies aren't really finished. There's no music, some of the effects aren't finished, and the sound balance is way off. I think they still need to loop a few scenes, too, especially one with Sheppard. For the most part, you don't really notice, except for the lack of music, which really intrudes. I mean, you notice the actors are sort of standing there, staring at each other, and you're straining to hear the music go DUM DUM DUUUUUUUM! and it doesn't. It's odd how much more movies are like operas than plays. We've all gotten so used to the music telling us when something's gonna pop out or when something touching is happening that without the score, the episodes just feel so raw.

So now, here's the decision. I've got an hour or so before a friend of mine's coming over for dinner (sushi, yuuuum) and I could pop one of the ole DVDs into the computer and rewatch an episode...and unfinished episode. Or I can wait and watch it for just the second time when it's on TV and has all the parts up and the music playing.

What to do???

Also I think I slept on my jaw funny. Hurts.

I have the cutest cat in the world

Damn Pissants

New Orleans is full of bugs. Lots and lots of bugs, big and small, quiet and noisy, really gross and really, really gross.

The cockroaches are the thing you fixate on at first. They're three inches long, with four-inch-long antenna, and they fly. They fly at you. They fly at your head.

Some smart-ass will come along and say, "Those aren't roaches. Those are palmetto bugs."

Whatever. Who cares? They're flying cockroaches when they're coming at your head.

But at least if you don't have too many cracks in your home, you don't have to deal with the flying cockroaches of death all the time. Unlike pissants. Pissants are a constant in the summer, and they're driving me out of my mind.

Now, don't think I don't keep a clean house. I do. It gets a little untidy sometimes, but it's clean. But the pissants don't care. From what I can tell, every time I get out the Clorox, they think I've cleaned up the place so they can have their friends over for a party.

A few minutes ago, I came back to the computer to do some work and picked up the Zone bar (I love Zone bars) I had set down just an hour or so ago on my desk and it was absolutely covered in damn pissants!! I HATE THAT! ARGHHHH!

You may wonder where they're coming in and why I don't stop them. But I my house was originally built in 1849 and I've got the original hardwood floors, and they just don't fit together well enough to keep out something so small. I'm planning to get the floor insulated, hopefully before next winter, but I don't have the money and that was my ZONE BAR!

At least pissants are easy to kill...except when I find one carrying something back home in its little mouth. It's disturbing to kill something that's being so industrious, even if it is making off with my lunch.