Knitting Tribes
The situation would be comical if it weren’t so depressing. One week I’m fielding drama from the “old guard” of the NSW Knitters Guild, convinced that I’m intent on destroying traditional knitting from within with my radical ideas about “email” and “the Internet.” The next week I’m copping it from the “punk rock” guerilla knitters, accusing me of being a Granny and Communist (yes, really) for saying that I think most knitted graffiti is a waste of time.

Obviously the issue is that a lot of people identify really, really strongly with their particular niche hobby community (be it knitting, Star Trek, or the Dallas Cowboys). Saying you dislike an aspect of that community is tantamount to personal insult. They all take it so deathly seriously. I just don’t get it. It’s just sticks and string! I’m not offended by people who don’t like knitting. It doesn’t define me as a person. I don’t take it as a personal insult when someone says they don’t see the point in knitting socks. Sometimes I take it as an opportunity to try to sway them to my side, but I’d never use it as an excuse to insult and demean them. If you think that someone saying they dislike your preferred style of knitting project (or your favorite band or TV show) is equivalent to them saying that you are a bad person, then there’s really no way to have a rational discussion or debate about it.

The only way to win is not to play, really. Militants (whether of the Old Guard or the New Subversives) really suck the fun out of everything.

Masterchef and the Snook
For the record, NO, the Snook will not be auditioning for Masterchef next season. Why? “Because they want people who want to run restaurants. I don’t want to run a restaurant. They said they want people who want to change their lives. I like my life how it is!” And there you have it. His superior cooking skills will remain mine and mine alone to enjoy!

God shines on those that tweet. Me, twittering away on Sunday arvo…

Snookums found this list of Bluetooth-enabled multiplayer iPhone games. Neat!

THEY STOLE MY TREE.
My beautiful little macadamia tree lasted six months. I went to check on it tonight only to discover that SOME BASTARD STOLE IT in the past 24 hours. Yep. They dug it right up out of its hole in the footpath. I WAS LIVID. I went down to see Michael on the off-chance he maybe transplanted it somewhere else, but he didn’t. He had some choice expletives for the kind of people who steal trees. He told me not to give up, that he had more trees with stakes and mesh. We’re gonna replant, and they’re not gonna steal the new one. I know he’s right, but man, I really just want to give up. Sometimes the rest of humanity just sucks, you know? And they don’t deserve my trees.

I logged in to Facebook before bed last night to see that I had a message in my Inbox. It was from an author called AJ Jacobs, who was trying to track down an obscure short story that he suspected might be by Roald Dahl. I wrote back to confirm that it wasn’t… and then this morning realized that I’ve actually read one of AJ’s books! He wrote The Know-It-All, which I read on vacation in 2007. I felt inspired to help him track down the real story, so I asked MetaFilter this morning and it was cracked within an hour. Fun, huh? So if AJ uses it in a book, you all will know that I helped!