Monthly Archives: February 2006

a prairie home… movie?

OK, here’s the pitch: take a popular Midwestern radio show, add a few big Hollywood stars, throw in edgy director Robert Altman, and what do you have? “Pure screen gold”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420087/. Or something.

Yeah, they lost me at “radio show” too. I can see the appeal of Garrison Keillor, consummate storyteller, but the rest of it sounds like an odd fit. Of course, it’s been well-received at the Berlin Film Festival, so I may end up seeing it (and loving it) when it comes to town.

Go Team Wales – Day Three

So the Spit moves. That’s a good thing.

And, see, progress:
Knitting Olympics - Day Three

I seem to be keeping up with my Documented Plan with regards to progress on the Knitting Olympics socks. They have reached the end of the requisite three-and-a-half lace pattern repeats and, though I was skeptical, I measured. The pattern said it should be about 6.75 inches; the sock was about 6.75 inches. Okay, so it was closer to 6.65, but set your logic aside and be here with me: I followed a pattern. It worked. _I got gauge._ For those of you for whom this means nothing, I cannot explain how rare and wonderful an occurrence this is. This is the thing that will keep me indefinitely in the land of Garments That Kinda Fit.

So, I’m an up person tonight. I knit lace. It’s supposed to look all wrinkly and squooshed, and it does. I set my goal for the day and I met it. And, I got gauge. If I had the energy this late in the evening, I’d do the happy dance. Ooo!

Now, I need to figure out how to block these socks, which, being lace, will be needing blocking. Perhaps I should visit the box stash again…

Go Team Wales!

A few weeks ago, a woman named Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (a.k.a. “The Yarn Harlot”:http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog) posted the idea that during the Olympics we all can be Olympiads, in our own way–for us, it’s the “Knitting Olympics”:http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/olympics2006.html. Each of us sets our own goal, to be a knitting challenge for the individual, to be cast on sometime on February 10, 2006 (the day that the Olympic Torch is lit) and completely finished and ready to wear by the day the torch is extinguished, February 26.

Seems like a silly idea?
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churches celebrate darwin’s birthday

As “Wallace”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108598/ would say, “Happy Birthday, Chuck!”:

bq. Nearly 450 Christian churches around the country plan to “celebrate the 197th birthday of Charles Darwin”:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0602110101feb11,1,287350.story on Sunday with programs and sermons intended to emphasize that his theory of biological evolution is compatible with faith and that Christians have no need to choose between religion and science.

Specter of Asbestos Bill Haunts Victims

Since I posted last, a bill has come before the Senate as reported by Reuters.

While this bill sounds good at first glance, a second look at the small print exposes the bill for what it is — a bail out for corporations who fear the cost of taking responsibility for the harm they have inflicted on workers and their families throughout the years. The general idea is good, but we need a bill NOT written to favor the companies who caused the problem in the first place. As the article mentions, there is a new bill before the House that might offer a better solution.