US Robot Builds Copies of Itself. Does this completely blow anyone else’s mind?

Is your monitor a little dusty? Try this. (Cutest link EVER courtesy of John.)

Huh? Rolf friggin’ Harris is going to be painting Queen Elizabeth’s 80th birthday portrait. That’s right, the guy who invented the wobble board and sang “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.” (The Snook informs me that he thankfully no longer sings the “Let me Abos go loose, Bruce” stanza.)

Like Kevin, I’m hopeful that I’ve grown up enough that the forthcoming Dark Crystal sequel wouldn’t scare the bejeezus out of me the way the original did… but who are we kidding, right? The sight of that poor little Podling in the Skeksis torture machine will HAUNT MY NIGHTMARES FOREVER.

More Sew Fast, Sew Evil bitchery. The pseudo-anonymous Karen, who’s been running around leaving identical nonsense comments in support of SFSE (on blogs like mine, Amy’s, bitter girl‘s, and girl from auntie‘s, among others), has started her own blog in an attempt to discredit the critics. Whatever. I love that she’s already deleting comments too.

All day I’ve been following this Ask MetaFilter thread about whether most women change or keep their names upon getting married. My own contribution is in there, but just in case any of you didn’t get the memo, I kept my name. We toyed with the idea of combining our names into some SuperSurname, but “Snook” and “Howard” don’t really form anything cool. Besides, I can’t imagine changing something so fundamental about my identity. It’s not a genealogy thing so much; there’s lots of Howard boys to carry on the line. It’s just that I’ve been Kristy Howard for so long that it would be too weird to be anything else. I’m willing to concede that my feelings might be different if my surname were difficult to pronounce or spell, but Howard is just about perfect: everybody recognizes it yet it isn’t as boring or ubiquitous as Smith or Jones. (Apologies to any offended Joneses.) Anyway, I was intrigued by this comment from the thread:

Data point: in Korea all women keep their family surnames. This seems paradoxical, given the low status of women in Korean society, but it’s all about bloodlines here. Paternal ones.

How about that? I was following ancient Korean tradition without even realizing it!

Ebert finally panned a Jennifer Lopez movie! And there was much rejoicing.

Wow. What an Amazing Race. (Look away, Andrew!) Finale reaction to follow.As I said over in the comments at TMFT, it was a pretty satisfying conclusion to the season. Hooray for Uchenna and Joyce! Yet even amidst our celebrations, the Snook and I were like, “CBS TOTALLY HELD THAT PLANE.” There’s just no way. I didn’t want to see Rob and Amber run away with it, but I don’t like seeing them screwed over either. They hustled their asses off for that flight. WHO ROLLS BACK THE JETWAY? Nobody. Yeah, the “pilot” okayed it. That’s only because Phil was in the Control Tower asking him to over the intercom. (Mmm, sexy Phil the air traffic controller!)

And besides, it was never going to be as thrilling as Chip and Kim’s victory because there weren’t any real villains (other than Ray) this season. Colin and Christie were worthy opponents who really, really deserved to win but THANK GOD THEY DIDN’T. I never got that worked up about Rob and Amber. I mostly just didn’t want them to win because they already had a million. (The Snook figures they might have donated it to charity.) If I hadn’t seen them before ever, I totally would’ve been rooting for them to take it out the whole time.

In conclusion, I can only say that I really, really hope they get rid of the whole “take your money away” non-elimination thing next season. Watching Joyce and Uchenne’s hopes fade as they had to beg cash was really difficult. It’s not fun or Amazing. Get rid of it, Phil!

Stitch and Bitch Scandal! According to this MetaFilter post, the Chicago SnB (love that Purl logo!) was served with legal papers from Sew Fast/Sew Easy claiming that they have a registered trademark over the phrase “Stitch and Bitch.” What? The SnBers are predictably up in arms. There’s no way they could defend such a general phrase as a trademark. What idiots. As the convenor, I feel compelled to go on the record and state that the Tapestry Craft Stitch and Bitch firmly supports Chicago SnB, and that Sew Fast/Sew Easy are a bunch of uptight, no-fun cows who probably scrapbook in their spare time. Bitches!

Despite the noises coming from my house last night, no, I have not moved into the “Phase 2 – Bulimia Yay!” segment of the Weight Watchers plan. Instead I was merely suffering through one of the nastiest cases of food poisoning I’ve ever encountered. It had been a good evening up to that point: I attended my meeting and registered a 600g weight loss (more on that in a minute); I went to the shops and rented a Pilates video; and I cooked us a yummy dinner of chicken burgers, wedges, and broccoli. I distinctly remember sitting here knitting and watching Iron Chef when my stomach gave a sudden lurch. It steadily got worse and worse and the nausea sent out waves of tension that moved up my neck to settle in the back of my skull. “I’m going to bed,” I said optimistically. Within half an hour I was throwing up my entire breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I spent the rest of the night alternately in the bathroom and moaning on the couch, periodically dry-heaving into a bucket. I didn’t sleep a wink until five a.m., when it finally subsided. I was half-tempted to weigh myself this morning to see what effect it actually had, but I figured there are some things I’m better off not knowing. If I’m going to go the “get sick, lose weight!” route, I’d much rather suffer through a nice low-grade case of mono than have another night like the last.

Oh, so now that the grossness is out of the way, yeah, I lost .6 of a kilogram. Though that’s my smallest loss to date, I was actually a little relieved given that I’d been rather indulgent over the weekend (the beers at Redoak, nibblies and banana cake at the felting workshop, etc). It’s good to know that I can have the occasional blowout and still stick to the program. (Hello, Chili’s!) I also got another gold star, mostly because I’m the only person who ever talks. Emily loves me.