Happy birthday to my Dad! Hope it’s a good one, Pops.

Me: Snookums? You’re allowed to buy yourself a Valentine’s Day present, okay?
Him: What’d you get?
Me: A handbag.
Him: A handbag?!
Me: Wellll, Brigita got one! And they’re on sale! And they’re rilly, rilly kewl. And see? It has a little record! I’ll be, like, the only person in Sydney with this bag.
Him: Whatever. (to the cat) Hey, Puss Puss! What do I want for Valentine’s Day?

Ten bucks says it’ll be computer parts.

Note to self: Implement some of these referrer spam blocking techniques tonight.

Update: Okay, I set up .htaccess to block anybody with a referrer matching the usual spam keywords. Let me know if it gives you any problems reaching the site. (Although that’s actually impossible, because if you can’t reach the site then you can’t read this post or comment anyway. Catch-22.)

Kooky Customer of the Day
I spent half an hour this morning helping some lady pick out wools to make a tapestry cushion. She’d already bought a kit that included the yarns, but they were acrylic and she apparently had a mandate to make this puppy all natural. We couldn’t find all the colors, of course, so she had to substitute and that meant, you know, MAKING DECISIONS and all, which can be very difficult when you’ve never done it before. Eventually, I sighed in frustration and laughed, “Your friend must be pretty special for you to go through all this trouble!” She responded, “Oh, it’s actually for my daughter. She just got engaged!” I congratulated her. “And she lives in this commune, you see, where they’re not really allowed to have possessions as such, at least not artificial ones; like if you buy them a microwave, it has to go in the ‘Communal Kitchen’ for everyone. But now that she’s getting married, they’ll be allowed to finally have their own room, a bedroom combined with sitting room and nursery, when that rolls around, and they’re allowed to decorate it but only with natural fibres, which is why I’m making her the cushion. Gee, I really wish I could ask her about the colors, but they don’t allow me to visit her…” I just gulped and pointed out that one of her chosen yarns was 50% acrylic, which meant she had to spend another fifteen minutes revising the colors. So here’s a tip: When you get invited to a wedding at your local Branch Davidian Complex, be sure and check the fibre content of your gift. You don’t want to look like an ass, now do you?

So it was the big TV Premiere Week… last week. But given that we’re nerdy TiFaux types, we only got around to watching stuff on the weekend. We’re time-shifting hipsters, I tell ya. Channel Seven – who I don’t think I’ve consciously watched in the past year – reeled me back in with their excessive hyping of Desperate Housewives and Lost. The verdict?

• Desperate Housewives was so-so. I thought it was going to be trashy and funny, not all mysterious and kinda sad. At one point I turned to the Snook and commented, “This show is actually making me sympathize with Teri Hatcher. Teri effing Hatcher. We are officially in the Bizarro World.” It’s got a big ensemble cast, though, which I guess means it takes longer to establish everybody’s character and relationships. We’ll give it a few more episodes, but if it doesn’t get good, I think we’ll be deleting that one. Snookums’s Five-Second Review: “They set up too much. Gratuitous mystery. Gratuitous voiceover.” (Me: “That’s your review? That’s not a review!” Him: “Make up something and say I said that.”)
• Lost, on the other hand, kicked a lot of ass. I was always a Matthew Fox fan – his hotness being the sole redeeming quality of Party of Five, in my humble opinion – and he seems really well suited to the character. And he’s aging well. Hummina. I cheered when Harold Perrineau came onscreen. I love me some Mercutio. The airplane crash scared the crap out of me, though. Is the (completely unrealistically skinny) pregnant chick supposed to be Australian? As soon as the pilot said something about flying back to Fiji, I did a shrieking double-take to the Snook: “IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FLIGHT FROM SYDNEY?” (Sorry Mom, I’m never flying home ever again.) As soon as the clanking monster noises started, I announced: “It’s Kong. Peter Jackson wasn’t doing a movie; he was doing a series. Look, it’s clearly New Zealand. And there’s Merry running around. The monster is clearly King Kong.” You heard it here first, folks. And hey, are we all in agreement that Merry is a junkie? Good. We’re definitely recording the second part of the pilot this week. Snookums’s Five-Second Review: “Spoooooky. A bit melodramatic, but, you know.” (He’s no Ebert.)
• It totally didn’t premiere this week, but I only finally just got around to watching it: Arrested Development. I TiFauxed an episode way back because I heard it was good, and then somehow I forgot about it. In a fit of boredom I finally watched it, and I laughed my ass off. (It was the episode where the Dad teaches the kids “lessons” with his one-armed buddy.) Are all the episodes that good? Why the hell didn’t you guys tell me about this? Now I’ve got to wait and hope that it gets show again.

Oh, and we saw Sideways last night with Amy and Rob. (Note: The person in the background of this picture getting ready to pound some raspberry beer is me.) I thought it was a bit heavy-handed at times, but by the end I was a total convert. The Snook and I had a big debate on the way home about Miles’s book, and whether we thought he was going to commit suicide, and whether it was going to work out at the end. (Of course it will! They just don’t need to insult your intelligence by showing you that.) We also discussed that if he ever cheats me on me, I reserve the right to break his nose by beating him with a motorcycle helmet.

Good times.

Somehow, what with all the backing up of my computers I’ve been doing over the past few weeks, my Mail.app Inbox now contains two copies of every message I’ve ever received. I thought I was going to have to have the Snook do some Unix jiggery-pokery to eliminate the duplicates, but then a quick Google search turned up this: Mail Scripts. I’m trying it out right now. Looks like a winner!

Later: Not quite. It worked all right on my Sent folder but it keeps throwing up errors every time I try it on my Inbox. I’m stumped.

Check out this article about knitting as political protest. Pretty interesting, but you know what’s even better? It includes a pattern for a knitted grenade! I’ll have to whip that one out at the next Stitch and Bitch… (Link courtesy of miftik.)

The Real Angora Man
Sometimes my job is a Seinfeld episode. You remember the story of Angora Man, the little old guy with the fluffy white angora sweater fetish? I didn’t think anybody would ever top him. I was so wrong.

On Thursday I met the real Angora Man. He was a big guy, maybe in his late 40’s, and my first impression was that he was probably here picking something up for his wife. He had a ball of some lurid lime-green Lincraft novelty wool that he was trying to match. He said he needed it to finish the cuffs of a sweater. From his comments, I gathered that he knew more about knitting than the average husband. “Are you knitting this yourself?” I asked. No, he had a knitter-for-hire that was knitting it… for him. Hmmm. I stopped asking questions. As I was showing him around the shop in a vain attempt to find something that would work, his attention was caught by our glass display case of expensive wools. “Wow,” he said. “I’ve got to have that.” He was looking at the angora. The lime-green angora. “The, uh, angora?” I said. “Very lovely. Would it be, uh, for yourself?” “Oh yes,” he said. “I collect angora sweaters. I have over two hundred.” That’s when I began composing this post in my head.He asked if I knew how that particular angora knitted up, so I told him that another gentleman had had a sweater knitted in it a few months ago and it turned out beautifully. How many balls did he use? I called my boss. “Albie, you remember Ang- that guy with the angora sweater? How many balls did he use?” “About 21. Why?” “Because I’ve got another guy who wants one, and he’ll probably need about 30. Do we have more?” “Are you kidding? I’ve got three more boxes at the warehouse. We haven’t sold a single one!” I smiled winningly at Real Angora Man and told him that I had plenty for him. He placed an order for 30 balls and paid cash (over $350). As he was leaving, he casually said, “Oh, and if that other angora guy ever comes back in, give him my number.” No worries, mate.

So that was on Thursday, and I giggled while retelling the story all weekend. I had just opened the knitting section today when R.A.M. walked in again. “Good morning!” I greeted him. “Here to pick up your wool?” Actually he’d already gotten it the day before, and in fact he’d also bought our last 10 balls in that colour (meaning he had 40 altogether in the lime-green). His new plan was to have a short sleeve jumper and a matching cardigan. In other words, a twin set. He was back to find some matching wool or ribbon to use for the cuffs and maybe a design across the chest. We picked out some lovely variegated cotton in green, yellow, and blue for his knitter to try out. As he was paying, he looked again at the remaining balls of angora in the case. “Could I have a look at the lemon-yellow?” I showed it to him and then agreed that it really tied the lime-green and the cotton together. How many did we have? Another forty. He ordered the lot. (Man, I wish I worked on commission!)

Making small talk, I commented that I liked angora but I found it a bit too fuzzy for me. “It all comes,” he said, “from having a mother that dressed me in nothing but angora. I can’t wear anything else!” I bet. I observed that maybe it was just something you had to get used to. “Eventually you can even wear it to bed!” he enthused. Uh-huh.

So, Original Angora Man, if you’re out there, drop by the shop so I can hook you up with Real Angora Man. You guys are a match made in heaven. (And how weird is it that my shop has become, like, the fluffy pick-up joint of Sydney?)

Huh. I just discovered that there’s a town in Australia called Kentucky. I looked it up because some woman gave it as her address on our visitor’s book at work, and I thought maybe she was just a confused American. But nope, there is a Kentucky Down Under!

Million Dollar Spoiler
No, I’m not talking about the Amazing Race. Apparently some conservative fatheads – including El Supremo Fathead, Rush Limbaugh – have purposefully revealed the “surprise” of Million Dollar Baby because they don’t agree with the film’s politics. Roger Ebert is pretty damn mad. (Note: Don’t go there if you have any plans to see the movie.) Of course, the really important question here is: How will this affect the Oscar Contest? Could a conservative backlash against the film hurt the actors’ chances to win? Could this swing the Directing prize back towards Scorsese? Only the Soctopus knows for sure…