Witty knitter

Slightly famous

I seem to have made it into the the 14th Downunder Feminists carnival with this post. Wow. Thanks grrrls.

Knitting birthday

 The lovely Miss Fee had a decade birthday, and of course it was a knitting event. We clubbed together to buy her a bag that she'd been lusting over, and there was so much money that we were also able to give her vouchers for books and fabric. Others gave her yarn, yarn, and even yarn. We came, we ate, we drank, we knitted. What else do you need to know?

Sometimes the simplest things take the most time

Our electric kettle gave up the ghost. In fact, it began shorting out the kitchen wiring, so sometimes when we'd turned it on we'd have to go out and flick a switch on the board outside. And it's winter here. We have another cheap kettle that we keep upstairs for weekend coffee-and-paper-in-bed events, but that's not very nice to use. It's awkward to fill, and when you pick it up the base often comes along too. OK to use twice a week, but not four times a day.

Buying a nicely designed convenient electric kettle with a small footprint in a big city like Sydney? Not so easy. Lots of kettles in which the lid is under a handle, making it difficult to remove. Lots which are not so quiet - our kitchen is in the living room and our last kettle was so loud it would drown out the music or TV sound. Lots which have huge bases - we don't have a lot of bench space.  Needed to be stainless steel, brushed chrome finish. Looked in the local shops, no joy. Looked online, picked two possibles, rang several retailers, all of whom were "expecting them in this week" or "thought they'd have been in last week".

Finally got in the car and drove 10kms to Alexandria (and this is a PhD day for me) to The Good Guys. Big range, including one of the ones we wanted. Pleasant service. So we now have a new kettle. But it isn't meant to be this hard to buy small appliances, is it? Or don't people use electric kettles any more, maybe preferring the microwave? I make tea in a pot, so I need a kettle - am I really strange?

The upsides are first, we discovered Lincraft in Alexandria, which is much nicer than Spotlight practically anywhere (except Auburn), and second, on one of our appliance store visits yesterday we discovered the perfect little LCD TV for the bedroom: excellent price, USB port, DVD slot, and lots of other things we haven't tried yet because we don't have a cable feed or TV antenna for the upstairs. Yet. Added to the list.

Are we ready for post-feminism yet?

From this morning's SMH, courtesy of AAP wire services, reporting an appearance of the Qeensland Premier, who was giving evidence in a corruption trial of a former government minister:

Ms Bligh, who came to court dressed in a black pinstripe suit with white trim and pearl jewellery, told the court Nuttall never declared any conflict of interest he had with Mr Talbot or Mr Shand, nor did he declare the receipt of any money.

In another story, it was reported that Mick Keelty's mob has finished interviewing the Federal Opposition leader about the fake email. But bizzarely that report didn't mention what Mr Turnbull wore to this important interview. Grey Armani suit perhaps? Fine white cotton shirt? Silk tie - what colour, I wonder? Grey? Blue? Red? But I think we can be fairly sure he wasn't wearing pearls.

Spare me from sensitive little flowers

One of the things I most love about Ravelry (and if you're not there you're definitely square - you can now sign up with no waiting so get over there and do it - JoVE, I'm lookin' at you, kid!) is the little buttons under the forum posts.

educational     interesting     funny     agree     disagree      love

When you read the post you can click one of them to signify your opinion without having to be arsed writing anything, thusly:

educational (1)     interesting (1)     funny (1)     agree (1)     disagree (1)      love (1)

When they are clicked by different people the numbers rise accordingly (the ones you've clicked yourself show up bold to you)

educational     interesting (1)     funny     agree (4)     disagree     love

or even alarmingly

educational (52)   interesting (47)   funny    agree (913)   disagree (463)   love (192)

Quite a few people who click 'agree' or 'disagree' will also post their reasons, but it's not compulsory. People can click 'disagree' without saying why. And lots of people find this really confronting. Nasty even. Yes, apparently many people really hate being disagreed with by anonymous people they have never met and will never meet. They will even change their preferences so that they can't see the disagrees, because they think it is rude or bad manners to disagree with someone. There is a constant stream of whining about why we have to have the disagree button. And it isn't helped by a childish habit called 'phantom disagreeing', when someone routinely clicks 'disagree' on everything another person posts. This, of course, is really something I would take no notice of at all, but it really upsets people, so much so that they will claim it as 'stalking', change their ravelry identity, or even leave ravelry altogether if they think that it is happening. (Note that I'm not saying that stalkers don't exist in Rav as elsewhere, but clicking disagree buttons isn't sole evidence of stalking. There are ample ways of reporting stalking and abusive behaviour in Ravelry.)

Rather than get rid of the disagree button in Ravelry, I'd like to see buttons become the norm on blog comment interfaces and all other forums. I think they're a great idea.

Outing myself

I have a massive (but of course never-to-be-requited) girl-crush on Annabel Crabb. How can I resist? She has the most marvellous sense of the absurd on all sides of politics, and her habit of connecting real events in Canberra to cultural icons leads to the most delicious morsels of humour. Her invention of the Ruddbot was inspired, and now she has created Goblin Gretch, a phrase so perfect you can only wonder why you didn't think of that yourself. This morning she brings us The House of Representatives as Hogwarts. 

Enjoy. I know I did.

Edited to add: I've just discovered I can follow her on twitter. ::faints dead away:: Thanks for the idea, Issy. I wonder if she'll notice that I've joined her 2587 other followers?

For the feminists

If you're interested in feminism(s), I'd suggest you subscribe to Deborah over at In a Strange Land. All her psots are interesting, but the ones I look forward to appear on Fridays, and she calls them her 'Friday Feminists'. I've probably learned more about feminism(s) by reading these than I have in the 15 years since I completed my thesis in Women's Studies.

After the work retreat, the knitting advance

Having retreated as far as we could go - ie to Coogee - our team is now advancing - not in lock step but as a ragged huddle. Which is the best we can expect. And I have turned my attention to more interesting advances, like World Wide Knit in Public Day.

Yesterday 80 knitters met at Darling Harbour's Bayside Lounge. We ate, drank, chattered, nattered, posed, hugged, gossiped, listened, shared purchases from the next-door craft fair, compared projects, laughed, wept just a little, and occasionally managed to knit a stitch or two.

The venue was overwhelmed; despite Sally warning them that 75 people might turn up they had only 25 seats ready for us. We rolled 'em. The staff just about kept up with demands for chicken, burgers, meat burgers, salads, prawns... wine, beer, champagne, coffee, lemon squash... There were knitters inside and outside. Jussi came from New Zealand just for the event, and there were other visitors from Wollongong, Canberra and Bathurst, and certainly others from places that I didn't pick up on.

There were great door prizes (all of which managed to avoid me). There was fun, and joy, and companionship, and we all had a truly great time. Thanks, Sally, for all your work, especially in getting so many lovely door prizes, and thanks for offering to do it all again next year... sorry, didn't I hear you offering to do that...?

I'm at coogee beach in a nice hotel at our annual work retreat/advance. Life's tough. This evening we have trivia, written by moi and a workmate. Should be a hoot.

58? How did that happen?

Today I'm having a day off so that I can try and forget that it's 58 years ago today that I slipped out of my mother's body and began talking was born. Sandra has tried to soften the blow with yarny goodness, knitted goodness, a Mary Oliver poetry book and beautiful jewellery, and my daughter sent a lovely book from NZ about the history of women's domestic craft, but it's still a hard one to come to terms with.

There will be a posh lunch, and champagne, and which will be lovely. But how did 58 come around so fast? How can 60 be looming so close? And why am I suddenly afflicted with existential angst, when I have been phlegmatic about earlier birthdays?