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I feel like a little kid that’s found out DisneyWorld didn’t live up to the hype. For the past two weeks you haven’t been able to turn on a television in Sydney without hearing a manic guy screaming about the “MASSIVE LIQUIDATION SALE” going on at Fox Studios. “REPOSSESSED AND SEIZED GOODS! NAME BRANDS FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST! ADIDAS! VICTORIA’S SECRET! STAR WARS! LEVIS – $20! HARRY POTTER – 10 CENTS! MILLIONS OF BRAS! CDS AND DVDS! AHHHH!” Through sheer force of repetition I found it sinking into my brain. I started to get excited at the thought of all those bargains. “I could really use some new jeans,” I thought. “Ooh, and the Snook’s been after some new T-shirts.” I talked myself into it. So tonight I finally caved and headed out there with Amy. What a load of crap it turned out to be. It made the Shipshe Flea Market look like Bloomingdale’s. It was a big warehouse staffed by indifferent backpackers and dodgy looking types with walkie-talkies. We didn’t find any Star Wars stuff, nor any Levis. The “massive” discounts all seemed to have been taken off massively inflated recommended retail prices. I found myself grabbing things because they were “on sale,” only to realize that I wouldn’t buy them from Kmart for the same price. I ended up getting a a comforter (which the Aussies called a “quilt”), a quilt cover, a Harry Potter magnet, two crap CDs (Acker Bilk’s Reflections and The Very Best of the Allman Brothers, which I got because it will forever remind me of my roommater Eileen), and a packet of socks. SOCKS. I am officially old. I left feeling a little bit wiser and a lot more jaded. If you can’t believe in warehouse sales of Star Wars merchandise, what can you believe in?

This is the first unveiling of my latest knitting project, a cabled jumper for the Snook. The pattern is from the Sirdar Denim Book of Aran Knits (which for some damn reason isn’t up on our site, so I had to link to it elsewhere). He wanted something warm but not itchy, something like a sweatshirt that he could wear around the house. So I’m knitting it in Denim Sport Aran (wool, cotton, and acrylic blend), which worked really nicely on my sampler sweater. I’m calling it the Looking Glass Sweater because, with all the naiveté of a rookie knitter, I decided to adapt the pattern to be knit in the round instead of flat. So I cast on the body stitches, knit my ribbing, and then knit the first round of the pattern. Then I stopped DEAD IN MY TRACKS. The first problem is that this annoying pattern writes everything out in words instead of using a simple, succint chart. (I hate words.) It wouldn’t be such a bit issue except for problem two: every even-numbered round has to be knit backwards, and every single stitch has to be inverted (knits become purls, etc.). This is because in the original, the even-numbered rounds were on the wrong-side of the garment, and I’m knitting it from the front-side only. At any rate, I spent about two hours tearing my hair out before I cracked open Excel and plotted my own damn chart. It’s now a hundred times easier. I still like the concept of every other row being inverted from the original though, like some sort of Mobius strip or 4-dimensional space, which is why I’ve given it the name that I have. Never let it be said that knitters are not philosophical!

On a side note, cables are really hard to photograph! If you use the flash you lose all shadow and definition of the cables. This is the best I could do without the flash. As you can see, the sweater has panels of double moss stitch on each side, followed by a braid, a section of slip-stitch ribbing, and a triple intertwining central cable. Pretty neat, huh?

Oh. They bought a house. That’s not very earth-shattering!

Has anybody seen that Cursed movie with Christina Ricci? I only know of it because Margaret and David reviewed it on The Movie Show recently, but they showed a clip featuring Mr. Pacey Witter (aka Joshua Jackson) who’s sporting a smokin’ hot Ewan-McGregor-as-Obi-Wan-type beard. Basically, I’m asking if it’s worth sitting through a crap teen horror-fest just to get a quick Pacey fix…

As promised, I have actual video footage of the Tapestry Craft team knitting with Nuala, the Channel 7 weather girl. From left to right, that’s Albert, me, some chick from Australian Country Spinners, Nuala, Joseph, Leanne, and Rebecca (on the stool in the back).

More trouble with Apple Australia
Yesterday was exactly three weeks since I was promised a replacement iMac G5. Unfortunately upon contacting the company, it seems they’re still dicking me around. It’s going to be yet another week. That makes more than TWO MONTHS that the machine’s been sitting dead on my desk. To rub even more salt in the wound, they’re now telling me that data recovery isn’t covered by the warranty and I’ll have to pay for that myself. Granted, I have 90% of it backed up (from the last time the damn machine broke down, which was a mere four months ago), so it isn’t a huge loss, but there were a few dozen new photos that I’d be upset to lose. I just wrote a fairly scathing reply back stating that I’d be filing formal complaints all over the place and it seems like them covering the costs of recovery is the least they could do. Otherwise it looks like the Snook and I will have to shell out a hundred bucks for a Firewire hard drive enclosure, pry the drive out of the machine, and see if we can back it up ourselves. Bastards.

Update: I just filed an official complaint with the Office of Fair Trading.

I’m ranting about Australia over on Ask Metafilter again…

Return of my Inner RENT Rat
SQUEEE! My good buddy Kelly McMahon just sent me a link to the official RENT trailer. Holy crap, how did I miss that it’s coming out so soon? It’s like I can feel the Christian Bale lust fading as my long-dormant Adam Pascal crush begins to bloom again. His long hair does look kinda wacky though. (That said, the two-second glimpse of “Roger leading his punk band” ROCKED MY WORLD.) It really does look like he’s going to be the central character of the film. I think Rosario Dawson is going to be a great Mimi. Other than that, I’m just tickled to see so many of the cast back together. Anthony Rapp looks to be given short shrift (in the trailer, at least) but Jesse Martin seems to be nicely featured (and deservedly so, since he’s probably the only recognizable face to most of America). I wonder if they’re going to keep it a true musical, where the songs spontaneously arise out of the action, or whether they’re going to do some cheat like in Chicago, where the songs are just fantasies in one character’s head. I wonder how well it will translate to film, seeing as how the best part of the theatrical version was feeling like you were really there, that you were really part of the whole experience. (The finale – with Mark shining his camera all over the audience – used to bring me to tears.) Man, I just can’t wait to see this! And hey, there’s a blog too. It’s nice to know that the Larson family is so involved.

Dammit. WHAT is Andrew and Kathleen‘s secret? It’s killing me. I mean, I think I know – you’re all thinking it too – but we could be wrong, right? So come on, guys, tell us before I explode!

Ebert gives Batman Begins four stars! Now maybe I can convince the Snook to go see it. (I like superhero movies a lot. Him… not so much.)