Nyar! Nyar!

OK, I just had to share this. This is my very favorite comic in the whole world, and darn near a bible for the Steampunk genre. The Adventures of Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius! Start from the beginning and read through -- you won't regret it.

Today's comic featured these two illustrations. The second one, I think explains mine and my husband's daily routine, in as much as we live in an area infested with black widows.


OMG, he's saying "nyar! nyar!" And trying to scare the girl! See, this is what I see when I see a spider. Not some cute little nature beastie that doesn't mean me any harm and is more scared of me than I am of it, and anyway, it's a lot smaller than I am, so blah blah blah...

NO! It's a threatening killer, come to intimidate and threaten me! See?? I told you!



No, but seriously, go to Girl Genius and support the witty and brilliant creativity of Kaja and Phil Foglio. Only they can protect us from Nyar spiders.

(Note: "This site is not approved by, sponsored by or affiliated with Studio Foglio LLC or Airship Entertainment.")

The Trouble with Technology

I've spent most of this week fighting with all my electronic objects. A great deal of my time has been used trying to fix my Roomba, which is a wonderful mechanical do-dah, but has some fairly serious design flaws. After taking it apart multiple times, getting my savvy friend to re-weld some wires, and cleaning the hell out of it, it decided it only wanted to go backward. My husband threatened to put BONK (that's it's name) in the trash, so I desperately took it to work to see if same savvy friend could fix it. Much like a car, as soon as I set it on the floor to demonstrate the problem, the blasted thing worked.

My modem went crazy this week, randomly dropping me off the internet (hence no posting), so the cable guy came by today to assess the problem and sold me a new one. Yay. I had forgotten he was coming (at 8), and when the doorbell rang, I was working on 3 hours of sleep due to insomnia. Again, yay.

Audacity crashed lots last week. Stupid free program! This week, it only crashed twice, and we were prepared for it, so we were able to get the podcast up today. I'm not having a lot of joy using Cubase LE-4, the audio program I actually paid for (well, it came with my interface), so we crossed our fingers for Audacity to work. And it did, so maybe that'll stay our preferred program.

Also, my attic fan seems to have stripped its gears, and now sounds like someone is trying to land a helicopter on our roof. We had to shut it off, but it's amazing how much it helps the heat. It's 112 degrees here in Las Vegas today, and the air conditioner hasn't stopped running yet. That guy is supposed to come on Thursday.

As far as knitting goes, I've been working on the Sheep. I think I've got it sorted, but I still need some test knitters to give me feedback. Wanna help? Please? I used my crocheted parasol at the tea party I went to last week, and I'm right -- the circumference is much too large. I'll have to re-do it. Nuts. I didn't like it the first time. :( I've got to go get sizing to starch my lace hat. It's gorgeous, and blocked beautifully, but the starch I used was too weak, and I'm going to have to re-block it using sizing, otherwise the 7 1/2" brim will hang down to my boobs, and I'll stumble around blind and ridiculous. Poop. What a frustrating week.

Viva!

So I had a pretty much fantastic day today. I bought wool and went to a tea party!!!!

I drove over to Knit Las Vegas and got a skein of Cascade 220 worsted weight wool in white (8505), which I will use to knit swatches for the TKGA Masters Level 1 Program, and a skein of Cascade 220 Superwash in colorway 809 (which is a primary red) for the sheep's crown. What sheep? What crown? Oh, right, you don't know me at all.

My handle is RedQueen, and I live in Las Vegas. Woo-hoo! I am a knitter (among other things), and recently, I found out about The Knitting Guild Association. This is the biggest fiber guild for knitters in the United States. I am a member of the Guild, which just tickles me to death. What is it Groucho said? "I would not care to belong to any club that would have me as a member." In this case, I find it really cool that my hobby is "legitimized" by the sheer numbers of Guild members. The coolest thing that TKGA offers is a correspondence program wherein its members can become Master Knitters. This is a very prestigious title in the knitting community, and one I will be proud to wear. I just received my package via .pdf email with the instructions for Level 1, and I can't wait to start! So, I went to one of my Local Yarn Stores (LYS) to get the wool I need.

"What does this have to do with sheep, other than the wool factor?"

Well, I am designing a stuffed toy. It is a sheep, and the pattern will be available for download from our Etsy store after I get it pattern tested. The sheep is part of the podcast that my friend MaddieHatter and I have started. As you might be able to guess: The sheep will be our avatars. So, mine needs a red crown. And hers needs a top hat. So I got some red wool, too.

I've never blogged before, other than writing the show notes for our podcast. Which is at www.herestoewe.wordpress.com, btw. Our show is available on iTunes as "Here's To Ewe!" Knitters are so punny... :)