Nice little article about Ramona Quimby. I wrote my Notre Dame admissions essay on why Ramona was my hero. Every time the Snook nags me about squeezing the toothpaste in the middle, I imagine squirting the whole tube out into the sink.

I was just finishing off the back shoulders of Rogue tonight when I came to the short-rows. Now I’ve done short-rows before on socks, so I started “wrapping and turning” without hesitation. Then I came to a row instructing me to knit across all stitches, “picking up and hiding wraps.” Huh? That’s puzzling. I’ve never seen the expression “hiding wraps” before. I’ve had patterns tell me to pick them up and knit them together with the wrapped stitch, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what the designer was indicating here. So I went searching. Thank goodness that Google indexes PDFs! This page from Interweave’s Knitting Glossary explains it well. In fact, I also learned that my “wrapping and turning” was completely wrong! I’ve been taking the wool to the opposite side, slipping, putting the wool back, and then slipping the stitch back – but I should’ve been slipping, taking the wool to the opposite side, slipping, and then wrapping. I wonder what sort of a difference this is going to make to my short-row heeled socks in the future. Anyway, the back is officially done. I still think this thing looks small. I’ve stretched it around myself and it’s going to be a snug fit! As if I needed more weightloss inspiration.

An Interview with John C. McGinley. You may know him as one of the Bobs from Office Space, or as the one-and-only original sarcastic bastard doctor Perry Cox on Scrubs. (There, I said it. Suck it, House!)

Snookums would like me to link to this video of a London busker performing Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” with a puppet army of Ken and Barbie dolls. No, I don’t know where he finds this stuff.

Greek Festival, Darling Harbour
I can’t believe I finally scooped Helen! On Sunday the Snook and I walked down to Darling Harbour to check out the big Greek Festival. It was beautiful and sunny and hot and crowded. We had some food and watched some dancers. I had a great time! (The Snook was less entranced: “I’m not emo; I just hate people.” We saw that graffito once and it’s become a catchphrase.) I even took my camera…My first stop was sweet-corn-on-a-stick. I’m not sure how Greek that is, but it was SO. GOOD. I had it with margarine and salt and pepper.

Next we stood and watched a troupe of dancers perform the song everybody was waiting for: “Zorba the Greek.”

Time for more food! We joined the extremely disorganized queue and waited… and waited…

We’d decided against the loukoumades, which were like deep-fried balls of dough dipped in honey. They looked amazing but definitely not in my daily Points allotment. (Incidentally, I’m amused that Helen took almost this exact same picture.)

I had the vegetarian “souvlaki,” which was basically a pita with chargrilled vegetables, garlic, and tzatziki. They’d made them up ahead of time so it was cold, which was my only complaint. Otherwise… delish.

Snookums went for the full meat option. Mmm, looks good.

It’s fun being a wannabe food-blogger… 🙂

Another MILEstone
I just had a sudden realization. The path around Centennial Park is 3.7 kilometers, which equates to 2.29 miles. Last week with Albert pushing me I managed to finish it in ’round about 22 minutes… which means I ran a sub-ten-minute mile. Whoa! Remember back a few years ago when I was struggling to break 12:00? When the heck did this happen? I am so inspired I think I’m actually going to go the athletics field tonight and run on the track. I haven’t run on a track since high school.

Later: Do you know how many laps around a track you have to run to run ten kilometers? TWENTY FRICKIN’ FIVE. And I did it! My longest run in probably eleven years. Unfortunately I forgot my pedometer so I don’t have an accurate time for it, but going by the watch of the drunk maintenance guy at the field, it took me about 65 minutes or so. And that, my friends, is excellent. I wasn’t pushing too hard at all so I definitely think the 60 is achievable. There weren’t a lot of other people at the field, and towards the end it was just me chugging around while a bunch of guys had soccer practice in the middle. At one point a ball came flying towards me and I picked it up. “I’m American!” I yelled apologetically. “I can’t kick for shit!” So I tossed it back to them as they laughed. “You run good though!” one of them replied. I’m gettin’ there, buddy.

Ooh, this AskMetaFilter thread is going to make Amy foam at the mouth: apparently Merriam-Webster now believes that “literally” also means “virtually.” It’s like I can hear the ranting from all the way across the Harbour…

AskMetaFilter tackles the issue of the best cat litter system. The Snook’s actually become rather disillusioned with our LitterMaid. He thinks the tines don’t go down far enough and thus you get a layer of stinky wee-soaked litter on the bottom. My issue with it is just that it’s huge and she tracks litter everywhere. I’d like to reclaim our guest bathroom! Something like this might be the way to go. It’s just that we’ve got so much invested in the damn LitterMaid – did I mentioned we lugged that thing back to Australia from Indiana? – that I can’t bear to part with it. I wonder if I cleaned it up, would anybody buy one second-hand?

Somewhere in Newtown there is Seth Cohen graffiti. I must find it.

Whoa! Now there‘s a positive. I’ve lost a total of 47 pounds… which, according to this calculator, would be worth nearly HALF A MILLION DOLLARS in gold. So I got that goin’ for me.