Rings

I've been watching Lord of the Rings recently. And when I mean watching, I mean watching. For example, a little over a week ago, on Saturday, I had some friends over and we watched the extended editions of Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Then, on Sunday, those friends had had something come up so couldn't come over, but no matter, I watched The Return of the King.

Subsequently, I've been taking advantage of my unemployment, and have been watching the commentaries. I've done the Directors/Writers, and the Design Team, and I've still got to do Production/Post Production, and Actors. It's been very interesting seeing how this was put together with such attention to detail. Did you know, for instance, that the Greens Department spent a year planting and growing stuff for Hobbiton? That they sourced a special grass whose blades were "hobbit-sized" so that it looked right for the different scales? The also made custom looms to get the weave in woven fabric to look right, and also sourced two different woods whose grains were in scale as well. The two backpacks that Frodo and Sam carried? There were over 160 of those, in different scales and different stages of wear and tear.

It was also interesting to note why the small departures from the books were made, mainly because the pace of a film has to be, by its very nature, somewhat faster than a book. I know that some people were unhappy with The Two Towers and how certain things had changed, but having listened to the commentaries, I don't think those changes were too heinous.

It will take me a little longer to get to the remaining commentaries as I'm now in gainful employment once more, and I want to try and watch any given commentary for all three movies as together as possible (ie on the weekends, when my wife is at work).

And, to top all of this off, I was recently pointed to The Lord of the Peeps. Very silly, but amusing.

so THAT's who you are!

I did some detective work. I noticed from the package I was sent that they sender was from NY state. I also noticed that the back of the piece of paper that was used as an address label was what appeared to be an excerpt of a manuscript for a book. In addition, the label on the padded envelope underneath had clearly come from a publishing company. Hmm... so a potentially published author.

However, my biggest clue was that Rhian broke down and emailed me to confess it was her! You can read more about her in her blog and also at her personal web page where you will learn she is indeed an author!

Thank you Rhian, these socks are lovely. I've now worn them for a day and a half, and it's going to be hard to have to not wear them tomorrow as I wash them. I love them!!

Does anyone recognise these socks?

Sock Wench has sent me my Sockapalooza Socks!.

However, I've looked at Alison's list of participants and all the ones that are listed there as finished are not mine (I only looked in the beginner's list, as I'm in that list, and therefore my pal should be there too). I've also managed to rule out some of the ones in the unfinished list, as they look nothing like the ones I got.

I have 100% Alpaca socks, they are comfy and warm, and will be great for hiking in, and they are a nice colour, not boring at all! I love them! Thank you Sock Wench. I just wish I knew who you are! :D

Don't forget to check out my Sockapalooza page.

Local Yarn Stores

Well, I visited a new LYS today. This would be Knitorious, in St Louis City. This has to have been the friendliest Yarn Store I've been to yet. I had a lot of help showing me the various yarns for my SuperSecretProject™. Then, yarn selected, I chose some needles.

Next, they kindly wound the yarn from the skein it was in into a centre-pull ball. Fascinating watching the umbrella thingy and the ball-winder to make it all happen. Well, I guess it was fascinating the first time. More than that, maybe not so much.

Then they let me try out the needles with the yarn to see if they were a good fit for my SuperSecretProject™. They were a little too small, so I exchanged them for one size up, which worked just fine. I received a 10% discount, for being a member of the Greater St. Louis Knitters' Guild.

I was also given a handy tip - if your circular needles are doing annoying bendy stuff, boil some water, dip the cable part in it (keeping the needles themselves dry) for about a minute, then hold them out taut for a minute or so. That should prevent further curlage.

I also showed them some of my projects online, and Sandy, the proprietor, wanted me to bring one or two in to show her. I will, when I next have some time (and gas prices have gone down again - they jumped around 25c overnight!).

And for extra bonus points, they had KWMU (our local NPR station) on the radio.

Oh, and if you're in the St Louis area, you can see Knitorious on Channel 5's "Show Me St. Louis" tomorrow (Wednesday 16th March) at 3pm. They taped this morning, but I found out about it too late to have my 15 2 minutes of fame. And if you can't watch it, tape it at three as they say.

By the way, if you'd not noticed, I'm embarking on a SuperSecretProject™. I can't tell you about it, though, obviously. Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Mildly disturbing moment.

So, I'm at church when I see a new family. Alison obviously knew one of them, from the animated greeting she gave. They got to talking about knitting as I approached, and I greeted the newcomer.

"Hi, I'm Timothy, and I knit too."

"Oh, yes," came the reply, "I've read your blog. I'm Fluid Pudding."

Just a little unexpected...

Walking the Red Carpet for a World Premiere

My wife and I went to a World Premiere tonight. No, really. It was the World Premiere of Possibly by Micah Hayes. It's a short piece for orchestra, and was played tonight by the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra. I thoroughly enjoyed the piece.

Emily Wozniak played solo horn extremely well for Richard Strauss' Concerto in E-flat major for Horn and Orchestra, No. 1, Op. 11, and the whole orchestra did a fine job of the entire programme, the remaining pieces being Richard Wagner's Trauersinfonie WWV73 and Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 in D major, Op. 107, "Reformation". The Reformation Symphony has as its theme for the last movement the highly recognisable tune from the Luther hymn "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A mighty fortress is our God").

My only disappointment was the low attendance. Most people, it would seem, only go to the Youth Orchestra Concerts if they know someone in it. Not us, though. We just saw the excellent ticket prices and I know a good bargain when I see it!

The Youth Orchestra has only one concert left this season, and the most expensive tickets in the house are just $12. I really do recommend taking the time to listen to this great orchestra.

donations!

I've been working on some items for donation to the Greater Saint Louis Knitters Guild.

Item the first is a chemo cap for a male chemo patient. I've posted about one of these before, but on reflection, the previous one was too large. I mean, it fits me nicely, but I have a large head, and chemocaps should be knit on the small side because the wearer doesn't have hair.

Curiously, on the previous one I got flashes of the white. This one, the yarn decided to stripe, as you can see in these pictures. Funny how variegated yarn does different things depending on the size you're knitting. Sometimes it's desirable, sometimes not. In this case, I wouldn't have minded either way.
Item the second is the surprise baby jacket. The main body of knitting is complete, and can be seen in these pictures. Funny looking thing, isn't it?
However, once you fold it in just the right way, you get a baby jacket. Here are the front and back views. All that's needed for seaming is along the two arms.
I decided that a nice way to seam it, and also provide trim would be to attach i-cord all the way around the outside in a contrasting colour, which is what I did. All I need to do now is attach some kind of fastener. I'm currently leaning to an i-cord lace to match the trim. For those interested in such things, the pattern is available from School House Press.
Incidentally, Candy, in email, directed me to Alison's Scarf pattern which describes the i-cord cast on I was looking for.

bluffing, buffy, balloons

Yes, I know it's late, in that I expect to be playing games again tonight, but this is what we played at Rob's last week.

First up was Intrige. This was an interesting little game, though we had to work through a rules translation from a previous edition of the game which had some different nubmers in, but we worked it out. Essentially, each player is Mayor of a small town, and is willing to accept bribes from other players to put their relatives in the lucrative jobs. However, once all bribes are received, the Mayor has free choice as to which player gets the job, and which of the salaries they get. It's very cutthroat. Rob played outstadingly and won, Mark, I think came second with Brad a close third, leaving me in last place.

Next we played Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Game. The scenario we picked at random was The Mayor. Objective was for the good guys to destroy a particular artefact, while the Mayor tries to get it. If the Mayor gets it, he becomes mega evil demon thing, much harder to kill. If that should happen, good players have to kill the demon Mayor. The Evil player's objective is simple: kill the good guys.

Kim played the Mayor and his minions, Brad was Buffy, Mark was Xander and Oz, while I was Willow. Having misunderstood some rules (that a player can give an object to another player without it being the giving player's turn) that meant that the nice destroy artefact card that I had right from the start could easily have wiped out the special artefact, bringing an early close to the game, Good blundered on, and got killed off, one by one. The Mayor became evil thing, and it came down to a final showdown between him and Buffy. Ultimately, Buffy killed the thing, but with the rest of us dead, it was a phyrric victory.

Last up was Cloud Nine. I managed a lot better than last time, helped by starting with two wild cards. I like this game - it's a lot of fun and quite simple. I ended up winning, followed by Kim, Brad, Mark and Rob.
If you look at my list of games I've played this year on my Boardgames page, you'll also see I've recently played Cribbage (with my wife) and Pinochle (with some people in our apartment complex)