web-goddess

Month: August 2007

  • Bombshell

    Come on, Stella!*
    My sister has finally dropped her bombshell, so I guess it’s okay to break radio silence. (IT’S BEEN KILLING ME.) That ain’t her gallbladder, folks! (Though it bears more than a passing resemblance.) Yes, yours truly is going to be an aunt AGAIN. Though it’s a little sooner than they’d planned, Amy and Dan will be welcoming another undoubtedly adorable baby to the world next April. And with my brother and his wife due later this year… we’ve got babies popping up everywhere! (But not here.) MAZEL TOV!

    * Last year when we were all questioning the name “Penn,” my sister jokingly told me that they needed to have him a sister named “Stella” to complete the pun. I think this would be BRILLIANT.

  • Australian Idol

    Australian Idol
    I can’t help it. I’ve been sucked in again. The guys on Sunday were pretty boring though, with the exception of crazy-ass Husny. The girls were a lot better. Tarisai and Cheray were my favorites, but I thought Lana did pretty well too. (I’m hoping Cheray will make it as a wildcard.) Tonight my favorites were definitely Ben the Emo Kid and Marty the Hot Surfer. (I’m downloading Marty’s song as we speak.) I may even have to throw them some votes…

  • Lunar Eclipse

    I just peeked out the door to see the lunar eclipse. Contrary to the naysayers, it was still perfectly visible from our apartment in the light-polluted city. Now I’m waiting for my latent mutant powers to emerge…

  • Trogdor

    Michelle knitted Trogdor. That is too cool!

  • Michigan State Sucks

    America’s Worst Colleges. I’ll admit that the Domer in me had a good laugh at Michigan State’s prominent placement.

  • Cat Stew.

    Cat. Stew. Ew.

  • Relaxing at the Botanic Gardens

    moblogged image

    It’s a beautiful Spring day, too lovely to be inside.

    Later: I had the day off but I was getting antsy just sitting in front of the computer (especially since I was obsessively checking my e-mail for any message regarding the job). So I headed out to have a picnic lunch with the Snook in Hyde Park. Then I walked down to visit the Art Gallery of NSW for the first time. (I know; that’s pathetic. I’ve been here nearly six years!) I explored the Australian and European collection on the ground floor, and there were a few pieces I especially liked: Snowdrop and the Seven Little Men, Bailed Up, The Camp, and Ned Kelly. That last one is actually a giant tapestry based on Sidney Nolan’s painting Kelly and the Horse. The colours and the scale of it are just amazing to see up close. (I had visions of reinterpreting it as a quilt or a knitted piece.) I was a little disappointed not to see more of the famous Australian works I was expecting (having seen the tapestry canvases so many times) but a sign informed me that they were away on loan for a few months. I headed back out into the sunshine and down to the Botanic Gardens. I’m always amazed every time I go there. Flowers were blooming, tourists were picnicking, ibises were screeching, and fruit bats were chattering. I spread out my blanket and spent the next hour reading Kavalier and Clay under the blue, blue sky. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon…

  • Fifties Fair

    My tea cosiesFinishing the Bryson book last week put me in the perfect mood for the Fifties Fair yesterday. The Snook and I caught the train to Turramurra and then the shuttle bus over to the Rose Seidler House. Luckily we’d followed advice and gotten there relatively early, so we didn’t have to wait long to get in. We ran into Morgan and some of the other Sydney photobloggers pretty quickly. After delivering the tea cosies to the Snook’s aunt’s stall (as pictured), we set off to see the sights. I’ve put a few photos up on Flickr. Yeah, there were a lot of dressed up hipsters. Some of the costumes were great, though a lot of the tats and hair colours were pretty anachronistic! We also met up with Amy and Bex (who has a sadly unflattering photo of yours truly here). I’m sure there’ll be more photos popping up soon…

  • Thunderbolt Kid

    The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
    I needed a pit of a pick-me-up after the nightmare that was American Psycho, so I cracked open Bill Bryson’s latest book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. It was just what I needed. (Not quite a unicorn chaser, but pretty close.) It’s basically just Bryson talking about his childhood growing up in the 50’s in Des Moines, Iowa, a place and time that are now so remote to us that Bryson can approach it like one of his other travel books. Since we saw the author in person earlier this year, it was as if I could hear his actual voice reading this one out loud. My favorite part was his several-years-long struggle to get into the “stripper tent” at the Iowa State Fair. His friend Stephen Katz (from A Walk in the Woods) makes an appearance towards the end. Overall it was a quick and pleasant read, though I’d still rank Down Under (known as In a Sunburned Country in the US) as his funniest. (And that’s not because I live here; I read it while we were still back in England.) If you’re the type of person that enjoys the gentle, nostalgic humor of A Christmas Story, then you’ll like this book.

  • RIPOFF!

    HCS Crafts Stole Our LogoDUDE! I was just googling for a particular knitting book online, and I found a UK shop called HCS Crafts. Um, notice anything familiar about that site? They completely ripped us off. (I saved a screenshot for posterity.) As you might imagine, I immediately fired off a rather terse e-mail.

    As I see it, there are three main problems here. The first is website design theft. They’ve copied the way part of our site looks in a really obvious way. (Also, RANDOM. They’re in the UK but there’s an embroidery of the Sydney Opera House? Did they even look at what they were doing?) This isn’t really a “crime” that you can do anything about, other than naming and shaming. (Hence this post.) The second and third issues are a bit more serious. That header with the embroidery and the wool and the red rick-rack? That actually comes from a printed advertisement that we’ve been running in Sydney hotels for a number of years. A printed advertisement that is copyrighted and which we never gave any permission for anyone else to use. Lastly we have the fact that they’ve taken our shop logo, the actual trademarked image that we have on a sign in front of the shop, and simply replaced the words “Tapestry Craft” with their own. Yeah. You’re really not allowed to do that.

    So of course this is all very flattering, especially since I’m the crappiest website designer ever. But hey! Now that I’ve been ripped off, I’ve got industry cred!

    Update: They seem to have taken it down now. Evidently naming-and-shaming works!