After 20 years, our family cockatiel has died. Originally a gift for my brother on his 8th birthday, Chomper quickly became the family bird. She's surely the reason that I have my own bird now and has permanently designated me as a "bird person".
Chomper, enshrined with her favorite swing and bell
I don't know why but I've been on a bit of a knitting craze lately. Knitty.com has some great patterns in its summer issue for winter/fall items. Most recently I've made a pair of lobster claw mittens, or gloves with only two fingers. The idea is to combine the dexterity of the glove with the warmth of a mitten. To make it a bit more interesting, the pattern calls for a wave pattern running across the top of the hand. The knitty pattern can be found here. 
It's a neat effect that I might try to integrate into other projects, since it's actually pretty simple. It's just a single knit snitch being cabled left two stitches and then cabled back right two stitches over 12 rows. I'm still not quite up to designing my own patterns, but I'm steadily building a repertoire of interesting techniques to supplement my projects with, which I suppose is the first step.
My current project is my first foray into fair isle knitting. So far I love it. The strands carried along the back of the work really give the work a nice and cozy feel since it's essentially double layered. And it wasn't nearly as difficult as it looks in pictures I've seen. I really recommend this pattern for someone starting out in fair isle. I'm making Tam C of this pattern. The author recommends using a variegated or multicolored yarn to give it a more complicated look while only using two strands.
I'm using mercerized cotton to make my tam, and it's fitting in quite nicely with the gauge (the nice thing about making a hat is that it's easy to try on the fit early on). I honestly almost always use a cotton blend in my knitting. I guess wool blends are supposed to be ... better? They appear in more patterns it seems. But in my case the softness and comfort of cotton always wins me over. I can't take the scratchiness of wool, even merino. I've heard that cotton can lose it's shape during the blocking stage, but the gauge is so tight I think it will be ok.
I found some reasonably priced and quality yarn at Inez's Stitchery in Kensington, MD. It's nestled between a bunch of old antique shops on a back road off of Connectiut Ave. It also looked like they have a pretty good selection of needles. Next time I think I'll visit a Tangled Skein in Hyattsville. It looks like they have some great sale prices and a big knitting community there. I'm still looking for some knitting circles in the D.C./Silver Spring area but until I do maybe I'll just drop in during the free knitting hours at Tangled Skein.
Wow it's been a while since I've updated this thing, but I've been pretty insanely busy. First up, we finally launched the SportsNation redesign a little over a week ago. Considering all of the backend changes we made, I think it went pretty smoothly. And whilst our users are extremely resistant to change, I think not having to refresh the page to update the transcript will grow on them. Below I have some comparisons between the old pages and the new ones. I made sure to take screenshots just before launch. For posterity of course.
OLD:
NEW:
OLD:
NEW:
This was probably the most fun I've had working on a project and I think it came out really well. Working with Dodd, Dheerja and Dustin was also pretty fun. A good group all around. Kudos to all!
I also completed my wooden jewelry box as the project of my fundamentals of furniture woodworking class. I highly, highly recommend the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking to anyone interested in taking a woodworking class. The instruction is great and the quality of the shop and machines is outstanding. I'll probably end up signing up for a weekend class if I come back to visit CT for any length of time. Which brings me to my next news....
We're moving to D.C.! At the end of June, Stephen, Zia and I will be packing up our place and moving the whole show down to D.C. Stephen will be working for a company called ProSol, and I will be working for the Sunlight Foundation. While I'm sad to leave ESPN and I will miss everyone, I'm also extremely excited to start my new job and meet a whole new group of people. And CT is pretty, but it's got nothin' on D.C. Great museums, parks, nightlife, monuments, crabs; what's not to love? We found a place in downtown Silver Spring which I think I'll really like living in. 
It's right next to a metro/MARC station so I can hop on the MARC and visit my old stomping grounds in Baltimore any time I want to. I also can't believe how nice the D.C. metro is. People actually wait to the side of the doors until everyone exits the train, THEN they get on. Amazing! In general it seems like a really nice city and people seem to be pretty polite on the whole. I guess I've gotten used to living without southern hospitality up here in CT. Glad to see it in action again.
So, even though I think CNN should no longer be considered a news network, I still get a big kick out of cruising the breaking news on their frontpage. Some of you may remember my twitpic of the giant breaking news strip across the top of their front page that read "Michael Jackson Going Back on Tour". I mean, not that I wouldn't love to see Michael Jackson in concert, but in a time where we have two wars and a severe recession, is that really breaking news? But I digress. Today, there was some link with the text "More tot mom party pictures surface". Since I don't keep up with network news, I thought, "Who is tot mom?". My original thought was that maybe this link went to a video of a mother who dressed their 'tot' up in a vegetable costume (ala Anne Geddes) and had a party to take pictures of it. Since that would have been pretty Onion-esque, I decided to actually see what the video was. I also googled "tot mom" and "Caylee Anthony" while I was waiting for the video to load. Apparently, the 'tot mom' is not a very good 'mom' at all! She (allegedly) murdered her own toddler. Despite the confusing moniker, I was able to get the gist of what happened on wikipedia. The actual video segment was some blowhard named Nancy Grace interviewing a guy about pictures he got from a Halloween party that tot mom attended. She was dressed in lingerie and making out with girls. So, that seems kinda typical for a halloween party. Lots of people dress in skanky costumes and make out with someone. But that was the whole video. Nancy Grace going on an on about how we should really hate this woman because she was at a party kissing girls. Even the slug on the video page is "tot-mom-kissing-girls". So... apparently killing your own toddler isn't enough to make America hate you. You also have to be gay.
So my next thought was, why is this person's entire show her being a judgmental bitch? I mean, CNN stands for Cable News Network right? I had to find out more. So a quick google search of "Nancy Grace" turned up some very rewarding videos.
So not only is she a complete waste of a network news program slot, but she's one of those sick people who likes to exploit people's personal tragedies for ratings. America's victim's rights activist my ass. In general CNN is pretty great about providing nonstop coverage of some family's most painful tragedy that will ever befall them, but that's a whole different blog post. For now I just say, Nancy Grace, I hope Wolf Blitzer is there to cover your most painful moment when it happens to you. And to end on a high note, here's Amy Poehler's great impersonation of Nancy Grace.
I'm just getting around to writing some of my new year posts. So here comes movies of 2008: my favorite and least favorite movies for this past year.
My Favorite Movie of the Year: Elegy
I might as well start with the best. I loved Elegy. Everyone knows that Ben Kinglsey is the man, but Dennis Hopper and Penelope Cruz are also pretty great in it. It's kind of a downer, but not in the typical way. Even though a lot of the issues the characters face don't apply to me at all, this movie still really resonated with me in a lot of ways. I won't say anything else except that you should watch it. I love seeing a great movie without knowing anything beforehand, so Ill give you the same pleasure.
Worst (or Most Disappointing) Movie of the Year: Appaloosa
What a letdown. Even Viggo Mortensen's fantastic, yet subtle, acting couldn't save this movie. Nothing Renee Zellweger's character did made any sense and it was extremely anticlimactic for a Western. Even Jeremy Irons had a pathetic character. Made me miss the Jeremy Irons from Die Hard 3.
Fun Sleeper: Be Kind, Rewind
This movie isn't very coherent and meanders a lot, but the rewarding moments in it are too good to pass up. Would have been great if they left the moral ending out of it and just kept going with the Sweded movies, but what are you going to do. Added bonus: huge youtube collection of amateur Sweded videos in a promotional contest for the movie, which is awesome in itself.
Overhyped: The Dark Knight
I'm sure any and all comments on this post will hate me for this. But... it was just a superhero movie like any other. And I thought Ironman had more charm and cleverness (or maybe I just love it that it's a nerd who gets to be the superhero?).
Biggest Surprise: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
I went to see this because nothing else was out, so my expectations were low to begin with, but I love this movie! And I really wish they would actually make the Muppet musical in the movie so that I could watch it over and over (I like the Muppets).
Movie I liked that nobody else I know liked: The Happening
This is a horror movie, not a thriller like his usual movies. Given that classification, I can ignore the lack of any character development and Mark Wahlberg's crazy acting. But for a horror movie, it was cool.
Worst David Mamet Movie: Redbelt
So many things going on in this movie. So many things that it decided to just drop and never explain or come back to. Also, definitely not enough action or fighting for a fighting movie.
Honorable Mentions: Tropic Thunder, Vicky Christina Barcelona, and Wall-E
These were just great movies. It took me a long time to see Wall-E, but I'm glad I finally did see it, and in the movie theater to boot. I'm also glad I saw it before I watched Ratatouille on netflix because then I definitely wouldn't have seen it. I think it's the most charming movie I've seen in a while. Robert Downey Jr. stole Tropic Thunder and even though it was the Three Amigos part II, it's still hilarious. The only other comedy with laugh out loud moments every single scene that I can think of is the classic SNL Coneheads movie. Vicky Christina Barcelona was also a nice surprise. Great movie from Woody Allen. After Cassandra's Dream I was worried he was losing it, but this is definitely worth seeing.
Well that's all I have for 08. Hope there's some good ones in 09!
RSS feed
