Quick! Hide your Valentines! Cultural vigilantes are trying to put a stop to Valentine’s Day in India. This could give millions of singletons around the world some very dangerous ideas…
And hey, this is kind of a neat concept. I could be a cultural vigilante. You know what I’d put a stop to right now? The Bill. No question.
We finally watched the Amazing Race 7 finale tonight… and damn. I’m putting our reaction inside, just so any Aussies don’t get spoiled.
Sidenote: No matter what the haters say, I am SO STOKED for Rob and Amber in TAR8. The Snook and I laughed our asses off at them in the preview. Go the Robfather!That sucked. We really wanted Kris and Jon to win. They’re just so pretty and nice! I guess Freddy and Kendra aren’t too evil, though. Yeah, she’s ignorant and racist and she apparently lacks the ability to digest food, but they ran a tight race and never even thought of giving up. Oh, and Freddie ate his own puke that one time. He earned it.
We paused after the first half to make some burritos and I ranted about Aaron’s proposal to Hayden. “She’s just so shrill and crazy and bitchy! Why would he possible want to marry her after a day like that?” The Snook hesitated. “I think it was probably just the stress,” he said. “She’s probably not like that in real life.” Huh? Gears started turning in my head. “Why would you say that? Why would you give her the benefit of the– Oh God. I act like that. I do, don’t I? Oh my God, I act like her! That’s why I find her behaviour so abhorrent, right? I AM HAYDEN.” He shrugged. “Welll… You did get kind of nuts occasionally while we were in Italy.” Good grief.
I still think she sucks though.
Since Eileen asked, here’s the picture of Sexy Geography Teacher in all his glory. (Click for a bigger version.) Now you can see where I got the inspiration. Wouldn’t you have liked to’ve had this guy teaching you about Mercator projections?
Further construction notes: This is an actual pieced garment, not something knit in the round (as I usually do). The graph consisted of the back, the two front sections, and one sleeve. The other sleeve is blank. The design is only on the “outer” section of the garment, meaning if you lift up your arm there’s not another version of India beneath it. I can scan the graph if anybody wants to have a look at it.
On Thursday I gave my latest knitting project its first public airing… I present the Geography Cardigan! I got the idea from an old 80’s knitting book Mrs Morris (the shop owner) lent me as a joke. The tackiness of the patterns really needs to be seen to be believed. (The back cover, for instance, features a guy in suspenders and a bow-tie standing next to a woman wearing a sweater… with knitted suspender and bow-tie motifs. Get it? It’s an OPTICAL ILLUSION. Very clever.) Anyway, I was flipping through it and suddenly there he was: Sexy Geography Teacher. He had a Ewan McGregor ‘tache to go with his acid-wash jeans and the grooviest, daggiest cardigan I’d ever seen. I had to make one. After a period of trial and error I settled on Sirdar Nova as the yarn of choice. It’s not 100% wool, but it’s soft and it was the only thing thick enough to get gauge that had a range of bright colors. In terms of technical difficulty, it was my first ever attempt at intarsia and I bungled it a bit. It looks fine from the outside, but I made the mistake of occasionally carrying the wool across the back instead of cutting and starting a new strand (because it was only a gap of a few stitches, and I’m lazy). I’ve since found out that you NEVER MIX INTARSIA AND FAIRISLE, which is what I was doing. Consider yourself warned. Anyhoo, I also had to invent a way to knit the collar on to the garment since the one knitted to the pattern specifications was way, way too small. But it worked out. I’m actually pretty proud of it! I still need to head to Newtown for some appropriate buttons, but it’s definitely one of my more successful projects. And check out the back! (And as the Aussies keep asking, Australia’s on my left elbow. No, I wasn’t clever enough to do the thing where you reorient the whole world to put Australia on top. Sorry.)
An Interview with an Australian Subject
Me: Snookums, does Prince Charles’s marriage prompt you to reconsider who you want for your head of state?
Snookums: No.
Me: Why not?
Snookums: Because I don’t think that the issue is anything to do with people… This person or that person…
Me: Continue…
Snookums: Huh? I said my piece.
Me: I don’t get it. Explain.
Snookums: It shouldn’t make a difference, this person or that person.
Me: You mean, whether or not you’re a republic shouldn’t depend on whether whoever’s King is a really nice guy?
Snookums: Exactly. It shouldn’t be a cult of personality. That’s exactly the type of thing we’re trying to avoid with all this debate about what kind of a republic we should be. It shouldn’t be about this person or that person…
Me: You said that three times. So, do I take this to mean that we’re a republican household?
Snookums:*silence*
Me: Oy! So are we republicans? Because I think I like being a socialist expatriate snob.
Snookums: Huh? Sorry, what? I’m watching some funny shit I downloaded.
Me: No. Way. Dude! Charles and Camilla are gettin’ hitched!
Snook: Nuh-uh.
Me: And check it out: He’s going to spend his last few weeks as a single man in Australia! You guys should totally take him to that ***** bar you guys when to for your Bucks Night.
Snook: Yeah, we should just be like, “Yo! Charlie! Bucks Night. We’re gonna show you how we do it Down Here…”
Stitch and Bitch time!
Here’s my buddy Katie at the new Thursday night Tapestry Craft Stitch and Bitch. We had six people tonight… Success!
From the ABC: “Pull your dacks up – or face $50 fine!” Hahahaha! I hope this will mean the end of the atrocious wave of women with triangles of G-string appearing above the waistband of their pants…
Damn it. I totally forgot it was the Amazing Race finale today, and thus that I’m supposed to be on an Internet blackout until the Snook finishes downloading the episode. So I surfed on over to Kim’s site, la di da, and two seconds later realized I’d just spoiled the ending for myself. Grrrrr.
