Holy crap! The Snook and I were both awakened late last night by a tremendous boom that rattled our bedroom window. “What the hell was that?” I mumbled as we went back to sleep. My addled brain chalked it up to a car backfiring or the people upstairs dropping something large. Turns out it was a huge-ass gas explosion at Nando’s about two blocks away!

As you may have heard on David’s podcast, yesterday was our big outdoor knitting event at the Australian Opera’s performance of La Boheme in the Domain. About twenty or so knitters turned up to listen to Puccini under the stars with a hundred thousand other people. But before there were thousands, there were four. David, Bex, Reecie, and I braved rain and clouds to stake out a spot a full EIGHT HOURS before the performance began. Our dedication did not go unnoticed by the rain gods, who eventually gave way before brilliant sunshine. (A little too much sunshine. I’m rockin’ quite the farmer’s tan.) We ate and drank and knitted the day away. David did his podcast live from the event and interviewed most of us early arrivals (including me). Finally the sun went down and the show started. I’m a big fan of Puccini (we visited his hometown in Italy) and the music was just gorgeous. I loved the actress who played Mimi, and I thought it was awesome that she was Asian. The whole Paris=Newtown thing didn’t bother me as I’d expected. (In fact, I approve heartily of their use of a goon bag.) The only thing that kept me from really loving this production… was Rodolfo. He didn’t look like a starving romantic poet to me; he looked more like a beefy greaser. His voice was amazing, but I just couldn’t buy him in the part. Musetta ruled though, and hearing those trumpets blast at the end of her Waltz while the moon rose over Sydney’s skyline just… CHILLS, PEOPLE.

I heart robots.
This? Is so freaking tomorrow. Gyroscopes are cool. Doesn’t that make you feel like we’re living in the future? I like that much better than those creepy humanoid robots.

I know Unclutterer only linked to these gun-shaped egg rings to mock them, but dude, I kinda think they pretty neat! But then again, I do have cookie cutters in the shape of Michigan…

I just launched a new promotion on the Tapestry Craft website yesterday: Free Shipping February! And despite the fact that our webserver decided to blow up for an hour this morning, we’re still going gangbusters. Why am I not being paid six figures for my marketing genius??

Homemade Samoas! Those look soooo good. And seeing as how we don’t have Girl Scout Cookies over here, those are pretty much the only way I’m gonna get any. I may have to try this. (Link courtesy of not martha.)

Okay, you* HAVE to go see The King of Kong. The Snook and I just got back from a special preview showing in Newtown. (I won some free tickets from Kinokuniya.) The movie is a documentary about a rivalry between world champion Donkey Kong players. I know, I know – supreme geekiness, right? And the movie doesn’t stint on showing you just how nerdy some of these guys are. We all had some good laughs at the start. (My favorite was the guy who plays Centipede with his FEET.) But then somehow in the middle, we really started to care about Steve Wiebe breaking the odious Billy Mitchell’s record. When he played the game at Fun Spot, people actually started applauding. And then to see the bitchiness with which it was taken away with him, and to see how his much his family and friends supported him and how much everybody wanted to see him succeed… It was just awesome. I even felt a bit teary at the end, and there was enthusiastic applause during the film’s coda. (Be sure to sit through the credits, which are pretty funny.) It’s like we all went in just expecting to laugh at the dorks – and ourselves – but instead it really did become much bigger than that. I’d recommend this film to just about anybody. It’s that good.

Quote of the night, from the Snook: “When they start playing Nick Cave when you appear in the movie, you know you’re the villain.”

Someone on AskMetaFilter is looking for stories of kids with superpowers. Man, there are some GREAT suggestions in there. I totally remember reading The Girl with the Silver Eyes in grade school. (She was telekinetic, right? And she ended up that way because her parents did some kooky LSD experiment in college? Or am I getting it mixed up with Firestarter?)