Happy Dyngus Day! As South Bend, Indiana has a large Polish community, every year they’d throw a big Dyngus Day celebration. So be sure to have a sausage today and throw some water on the one you love!
Month: April 2003
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Australian television is airing the infamous UK coughing episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire tonight. It looks like we’ll be the first place in the world to see it!
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Scarves Galore
Scarves Galore
The Easter Crafting Marathon continues. I’ve finally finished my red mohair scarf, which you can see below. The other two are scarves I’ve made in the last couple weeks.
First you have Snookums modelling my “Rock Star Scarf”, which is knitted out of Faux Fur. It’s this crazy yarn with lots of little hairs sticking off it that actually looks like fur once you knit it up. (Let me warn my fellow knitters: It was insanely difficult to work with. You can’t see any of the stitches so if you drop one, you have to start all over.) The second and third scarves are both made of mohair, which is incredibly soft and fuzzy and beautiful. I did the blue-green one first as a gift for my Dad’s wife Cindy, and I liked it so much I got the red to do my own. Pretty nice, huh? They’re both about six feet long and six inches wide. I can’t wait to wear mine outside (if it ever stops raining)…
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In memory of Dr. Atkins, Rodd and I will be eating his pancakes and syrup today. Yep, actual Atkins brand! They were sent to use for Easter by my Dad and Cindy. Such a cool gift. Although, the first thing I saw when I opened the box was… PEEPS! There were Peeps lurking in my house all along! Luckily we had four tipsy guys in the house last night who were more than willing to scarf down some weird marshmallow birds. (We even showed them the trick of putting one in the microwave.) Ahh, good Easter fun.
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RIP Dr. Atkins.
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Trivia Update: Despite kicking ass in the first round, we dropped to third by the end of the competition. Whatever. We did manage to win 4 out of 5 mini-jackpots though, with yours truly coming up with two. (I correctly identified “Robert Carlyle” as the star of “Ravenous” and “The World is Not Enough” and the song “3 AM” as the source of the lyric “She says it’s cold outside and she hands me a raincoat.”) Question of the night: What are the first five books of the New Testament?
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Well. Michael Jordan retired again. Isn’t this, like, the eighth time he’s done that?
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“How Easter is Different in Australia”
- We don’t color eggs here. In fact, in Australia (and in the UK), “easter egg” refers to a giant chocolate egg usually the size of a football. These kick ass. Granted, you don’t get as many as you do of the hard-boiled ones in the US, but who really eats the hard-boiled ones anyway?
- Bunnies are used in advertising here, but no little kids actually believe a giant bunny will bring you chocolate. You can’t get your picture taken with one in a mall, either. Which is nice, because the Easter Bunny scared the crap out of me as a child.
- Actually, rabbits are a plague in Australia and some folks think they shouldn’t be glamourized at all. That’s why there’s a movement to replace the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby, which is a weird native marsupial that kinda looks like a rabbit. As long as it’s chocolate, I’m in favor.
- Everyone here eats hot cross buns for Easter. These are fresh-baked rolls with orange peel and raisin in them, and they have a little white cross of dough on the top. They’re glazed with yummy sugariness too. This is a tradition I think we need to revive in America.
- Though I can’t stand the eggs themselves, I used to love the Cadbury’s Cream Egg commercial in the US with the bunny that clucks like a chicken. You don’t get that here or in the UK. However, you can get the actually eggs pretty much year round outside America. They’re not so much exclusively tied to Easter here.
- About this time every year in Australia you get the “Royal Easter Show”, which is basically the state fair. Yep, Easter is in the Fall here, so that’s when everybody rolls out their prize pumpkins and sheep and stuff. I haven’t been yet, but I’m hoping to make it out this weekend. They’ve got lumberjack competitions! And high-diving pigs! How could we not?
- The very best thing about Easter Down Under: No Peeps! Praise Baby Jesus.
Australians are actually having an extra-special Easter this year, given how late it falls on the calendar. Next Friday is “Anzac Day”, which is a Memorial Day for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. (Hence, ANZAC.) It’s a big public holiday. So starting tomorrow with Good Friday, we have four days off work, then three days on, then another three-day weekend off. Hallelujah!
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Sorry for the weird database errors this morning. I have no idea what happened. I’ve put in a workaround for now and I’ve raised a support request with my host. Just let me know if you notice any other problems…
Update: Turns out it wasn’t my fault. Some other user at my ISP mistakenly filled up the /tmp directory, which somehow I needed to use. So it’s all good now.
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Hello Kitty Underpants
Behold, my underpants.
Okay, I’d like to start off by filling you single (and gay) guys in on a little secret: all girls have “granny pants”. These are the nice comfy cotton underpants we wear when we’re sick or out of laundry. No, they’re not sexy at all. Last Christmas my Mom sent me a nice pack of new plain white granny pants (as Moms are wont to do). They’re functional, though huge, and though I haven’t worn them yet, I’m not about to let them go to waste. They could be a little bit cuter though. That’s why I decided to try to liven them up a bit with some of this iron-on transfer paper (considering that I get a pretty nice staff discount). I wasn’t sure about a design until I came across a set of Hello Kitty brushes for Illustrator last week. With that, the plan was made.The transfer paper was actually really easy to use. As I understand it, it’s coated in a kind of waxy stuff that melts when you iron it, thus coming off the paper and trapping the ink onto your shirt. That’s why you’ve got to trim pretty good around the image, because even where there’s no color you still get a layer of stuff. The design itself feels a little stiff right now, so I’m not sure how comfortable it’d be to wear a great big design. I don’t know how well they’ll hold up in the wash either, but quite frankly it’s not too big a worry. They’re only underpants. 🙂
(Hmm. Given that I officially got “on” the Net when I started college in 1995, it’s taken me about eight years to put my undergarments online. Geez, I’m like a porn star now or something.)
