Cool! My Dad and his cool Harley motorcycle were featured in the local paper. It’s been a banner media week for the Howards!

Man, sometimes I really miss living in London. 🙂

As Snookums put it: “Ack. I’m confused. Are Microsoft evil or not? I can’t decide!!!“

An Australian MeFite asks: Is recycled water really fit for human consumption?

ABC Knit-In 2006
Here’s me and Amy kickin’ it at this year’s ABC Knit-In. There were hundreds of people there knitting squares and sewing together blankets for Wraps With Love. Several members of the Knitters’ Guild Inner City group turned up, and we even got our picture taken with Adam Spencer! I’ll post more pictures as soon as Amy gets home and e-mails them to me…

Oh good grief. My little blurb in the Fashion Police section in the SMH is up, and I sound like a lunatic:

Forget acupuncture, hypnotism and patches – they’re so five minutes ago when it comes to quitting smoking therapies. Craft enthusiast Kris Howard is calling all smokers to enrol in her very worthy Knit and Quit classes. An AA-style support group, it enables smokers to learn a new skill while sharing their trials of giving up nicotine. “Once you get into a rhythm your brain zones out and focuses on the here and now,” says Howard, who asks only that participants, just like the lightbulb, want to change. Classes are free with materials supplied by Patons so there’s no excuse. From August 9 for four consecutive weeks. 6pm-7.30pm, Tapestry Craft, 50 York Street, city, 92998588, www.tapestrycraft.com.au.

Okay, first off, I told her that it was definitely NOT an “AA-style” support group. We’re not gonna make anybody stand up and identify as a smoker, and there are no steps or reliance on Jesus or anything. It’s just a knitting group. And secondly, this makes it sound like the whole thing was my idea. Lady, a MARKETER came up with this. I’m just teaching the class. And lastly, out of everything I said to her, that’s the bit she chose to quote? I sound like a stoner.

Guess what just came in at the shop today? By popular demand, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran! Looks like I may have to make a pair of these suckers after all.

Books I’ve Finished Recently:

– March by Geraldine Brooks. This one came highly recommended – both by Mary-Helen and the folks at Kinokuniya – but I have to say I’m a little conflicted about it. On one hand I think it’s a great story, well-told and engaging, and the author’s conceit of filling in the missing “grown-up” parts of Little Women is cleverly executed. (Almost too cleverly; I found myself ticking off each expected plot point as it occurred: the parents’ courtship, the Marches’ lost fortune, Marmee’s temper, Aunt March’s feud, etc.) Brooks is unflinching in her portrayal of the Civil War and the moral conflicts faced by those abolitionists who took up arms. Yeah, I wept when I read the message on the silk scarf, and I was surprised at how the happy ending of LW was changed into something completely different here. But for all its good points… it’s fan fiction. Really good fanfic, but fanfic nonetheless. I kept thinking back to the horrible The Wind Done Gone and the salacious Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (especially with all the unexpected sex). *shudder* Are they really giving out Pulitzer Prizes for exceptional achievements in fan fiction now? Because the Harry Potter slashfic geeks will be ALL OVER THIS.

– Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson. Yeah, Snookums has already read this one to me as a bedtime story, but I fall asleep and I miss parts. It was nice to go back and fill in the gaps. Man, I just can’t get enough of Sniff! He’s definitely my favorite character (followed closely by the Hemulen). “Five horrible experiences. It’s beginning to be monotonous!” I like how Sniff is always screaming and running after shiny things.

– Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb. I absolutely love the look of this book. This is what comic books should look like. That said, the story was a bit hard for me to get my head around. I can tell from the way it’s structured that many of the cameos, in-jokes, and references were gifts for the hardcore fans (who no doubt loved them), but with my limited knowledge of Batman canon most of them went right over my head. (For example, I’d never heard of Clayface before so his appearance was really confusing for a while.) But man, the look of it! Great hulking heroes and ass-kicking voluptuous babes… It was worth it just for the visuals. (And for Supes getting his butt kicked. That’s always a bonus.)

– Ultimate Spider-Man (Volume 1) by Brian Michael Bendis. Meh. I didn’t love this one so much. The vivid cartoony style just doesn’t appeal to me a lot. Is this the way Spidey has always looked? So gangly and Disneyfied? I know it’s just the origin story, but right now it reads like Spider-Man meets Saved by the Bell. Maybe I just prefer darker stories…

– Y: The Last Man (Volume 1) by Brian K. Vaughan. Like this one! A mystery plague wipes out every male on the planet except for one guy and his pet monkey. And oh yeah, his Mom’s a Congresswoman and this girlfriend’s somewhere in Australia. The artwork is okay – not visually arresting like Hush, but not too distracting to the narrative like Ultimate Spider-Man. (It took me a little while to work out that 355 is actually female.) The writing is awesome, really well done. (I like it when comic book characters swear.) I was wary that the concept would get boring and cheesy, but I got sucked into the story really quickly. And the violence! Those crazy Amazons, cuttin’ their own boobs off. I can’t wait to see where they go with this…

I need a cigarette (smoker).
Any unembarrassed Sydney smokers willing to do a little media whoring for me? Stupid publicist wants to run a piece in the SMH about this “Knit & Quit” class we’re running, and they want to have a picture of the class… before it actually runs. So we need a smoker willing to fake wanting to learn to knit for a photo shoot. (I told her I knew plenty of knitters willing to lie in print, but she shot that down.) I honestly don’t know any smokers anymore; they’ve all moved to London. (Seriously.) It would likely involve coming down to the shop in the next day or two for a picture, and possibly giving a quote with your name. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Another Click Survey, this time more abstract. I like seeing the surprising patterns of where people clicked.

Edited: I had the URL wrong!