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Attention Sydney Sock Knitters: I have seen the future, and it is Araucania. Specifically, Araucania Ranco Solid and Ranco Multi. Both are 75% wool, 25% nylon. Both have over 340m per 100g skein (compared to a miserly 267 on Jitterbug). And both were in my hands this afternoon in the shop. I actually GASPED when Albert pulled them out of the bag. They’re beautiful. I told him they’re going to be a massive hit, so he should get a couple packets of every colour. Get ready!

Oh, and also coming: the breathtaking Mirasol Hacho (a 100% merino 8ply) and Mirasol Cotanani (a 60% cotton, 40% wool 8ply). Yes, you read that correctly. A wool/cotton blend READILY AVAILABLE IN AUSTRALIA. I swooned.

56 American roller coasters… from the front seat. AWESOME. I haven’t been to Cedar Point in more than seven years, so I loved getting to “ride” the Magnum once more. I hadn’t even heard of that new Maverick coaster. Anybody try it this summer?

Dumbledore is gay. Interesting! I especially like Rowling’s astute observation that the fanfic world is going to go nuts over this news.

Middlesex
Last Friday I finished the second of Eileen’s book recommendations, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. I knew absolutely nothing about it before I started, and I deliberately avoided the introduction at the front of my edition. I needn’t have worried. The big “hook” of this story – that it’s being narrated by a hermaphrodite – is given away on the first page. It’s not so much the story of what Cal is, but how he came to be what he is. So instead of immediately gratifying my curiosity (and voyeurism), Eugenides’ narrator abandons his intriguing opening in favour of the story of how Cal’s grandparents immigrated to the US. They escaped the Great Fire of Smyrna (it was eye-opening to be reading this while the debate about the Armenian Genocide is going on) and eventually ended up in Detroit. Eventually the story skips ahead to follow the romantic tribulations of Cal’s parents, first-generation Greek-Americans who had no idea what the previous generation had gotten up to. By the time Cal(liope) is finally born halfway through the book, I couldn’t put it down.

That’s not to say the book is perfect. The family stuff is certainly compelling – and the hermaphroditic element is undeniably interesting – but overall I never really warmed to Cal as a person. I liked Calliope and I sympathized with her confusion, but I didn’t find her sudden transition to Cal to be very believable. This review from the New York Review of Books spells it all out much better than I can. Still, the characters are all vivid and fascinating, and it taught me a little bit about a period in history I knew very little about. (My favorite part was probably the reintroduction of Desdemona to the narrative. I had actually thought several times to myself, “What happened to her? Did I skip a paragraph where she died?” Ha!)

Now I’m on to The Accidental by Ali Smith, as recommended by Brittanie. Again, I’m going in cold. So far it’s a very different read to Middlesex, like the difference between an impressionist Art Film and a sprawling Scorsese narrative.

Stories about poker seem to keep cropping up now that I have a semi-relative that plays professionally. Check out this exposé about a cheating ring at an online poker site. Fascinating. (Link courtesy of Daring Fireball.)

One-Woman Etiquette Crusades That I Am Currently Pursuing:

1. Bus Panickers. If I’m sitting in the outside seat on the bus and the person beside me starts making “get up” signals five minutes before my stop, I smile and say, “Oh, I’m getting off there too” and then make them wait til the bus comes to a complete stop. Eventually someone’s going to pee themselves from anxiety, I just know it. People, you won’t get trapped on the bus!
2. Anti-Social Bus Sitters. If someone is sitting in the outside seat on the bus (leaving the inside empty or, god forbid, sitting their bag there), I make sitting beside them a PRIORITY. We’re not in elementary school anymore; you have to share. Make room for other people!
3. Door Cloggers. If four people are standing at the back door of the bus, leaving the whole back end empty while others are crammed against the windshield, I’ll call out sweetly, “Can you move to the back please?” And if they don’t, I’ll pointedly push my way through and then give them a dirty look. Again, you won’t get trapped on the bus.
4. Public Spitters. It’s always men. It’s DISGUSTING. I give them pointed dirty looks.
5. Cigarette Butt Droppers. Again, disgusting. There are trash cans with ash trays, like, every fifty feet in the city. Use them. I currently give these people dirty looks, but I can see it escalating as I get older. I’ll probably end up brandishing their smoking butt in their faces. Use the trash can!
6. Escalator Hogs. It’s gotten to the point where I actually relish seeing two people standing abreast on the escalator, so that I can exclaim “Excuse me!” while barreling past. The sign says to stand to one side. Obey it.
7. Golf Umbrellas. Please go outside and put up your umbrella. If you hold one arm straight out to the side, are you still within the boundaries of your umbrella? If so, YOU ARE A BLIGHT ON SOCIETY. You make it impossible for people with normal umbrellas to walk past you on the sidewalk. And unless you’re tall as well, you’re probably whacking tall people in the face with spokes as you obliviously stroll to work in your own personal environmental bubble. Your right to remain dry stops when I have to walk in the street to get around your stupid, inappropriately large umbrella. For these people, I look pointedly at their umbrella, roll my eyes, and then give them a dirty look. Maybe I should wiggle my pinkie at them?

Yes, I realize I’m turning into a Grumpy Old Woman. But dammit, we’re trying to have a society here!

My poor Penny has roseola!

I blame my father, really, for my inexplicable love of car chases and the Smokey and the Bandit movies. I suppose that’s why I got so caught up in this Wired article about an attempt to break the Cannonball Run record. Two complete geeks (with lots of money and very little regard for speeding laws) planned to break the 22-year-old speed record for crossing the US from New York to Los Angeles in a car. Did they make it? You’ll have to read to the end to find out.

Sydney is evidently suffering an acute butter shortage. EEEEK!