T-Rex Attacks!

At Art Weekend 2010, I started working on the Knit Picks Critter Mitts T-Rex hand puppet. What better use for yarn is there but making awesome toys? Sure you can make socks and gloves and sweaters but you can also make hand puppets!

The first one came out well. He has a little ridge of spikes and big scary teeth and a big red mouth and little teeny tiny useless arms. He reminds me of T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics! (In fact, I may need to take more pictures and do a little photoshopping… he might be full of burgers! And atoms!)

I believe T-Rex needs a friend. One cannot just have T-Rex. The kit provides the yarn and instructions to make a triceratops. And he is orange so….

As you can see, Katie greatly appreciates T-Rex. She’s as scary as it is! RAR!

The building was, up until recently, a small bed and breakfast. It had that homey feeling of a place well lived in and well loved over the decades. The downstairs area is mostly a restaurant with a lounge area which may, at first glance, seem odd. On the one hand, the kitchen was cut off from the seating. On the other hand, it had an industrial kitchen that had more plates and glasses then we could dirty easily. Many tables meant easy and plentiful work spaces. Big windows by the seating areas meant lots of natural light.

I had a super relaxing time and spent the entire time knitting. Sure, making an ugly brown sock (of two! two ugly brown socks!) and working on the Critter Mitts kit from Knit Picks (I made the T-Rex! RAR!) isn’t exactly art, there was… plenty of art beer. And lots of silence/peace times to sort of clear the mental decks.

I also had my phone off and only used my netbook for youtube instructional knitting videos, of which I needed several. The Internet existed without my being there!

It was very comfy. It was like living in a warm blanket for several days. A great big warm, comfy blanket.

We’re definitely going back next year, although sadly since the Inn is up for sale to yet another place.

Oh! I finished my t-rex at midnight last night. He’s terrifying! In a goofy way. Terrifyingly goofy. I need my Very Special Model to pose with it and get some pictures online.

On Saturday we went up to Lowes and bought this stuff called Deer Off. A nice lady working at Lowes wanted to be helpful but got scared when faced with my wrath and hatred upon the deer. She fled when I started trying to make all deer worldwide explode with my mind. I hate the damn deer.

I took it home and this stuff is the foulest, nastiest, most awful stuff in the history of mankind. It’s basically coagulated deer blood and it comes out of the bottle in concentrate. Lumpy. It is a sort of brain-puree pinkish color. The smell is something to believed — it’s easily the most foul stuff I have ever contacted and I have wiped many a dirty diaper full of baby butt. It is horrible.

My hatred for the deer saw me through. It was mixed in the spray bottle and put down on my most edible, tasty plants until those suckers were dripping with coagulated deer nasty. One of my roses looked pinkish white when I was done. The entire yard stank of this stuff that claims, oh yes it claims, to dry odorless to humans. I certainly wouldn’t eat anything that smelled like that.

Once I was done, we went off to see Iron Man 2.

When I walked out of Iron Man 2, it was raining.

And to add insult to injury, a deer came along and ate more heads off another day lily. I hate them. I hate them.

Some of them are blooming right now (yay) but I am just furious. God wants the deer to have a buffet. Next up: the hamburger sign with “THIS WILL BE YOU” on it.

I have coffee grounds to put down around my plants and they are going down tomorrow because they are good for other reasons but does anyone have any anti-deer advice other than sitting on the porch at dawn with a gun? … although venison is mighty tasty. I have to head to Lowes to get a hedge trimmer this weekend so I was looking to pick up some products to spray.

(Note: I have netting around my vegetables to keep the animals out. The netting is very effective but wrapping my whole garden in netting is a little prohibitive.)

So anyway! Sock. With same cheap DPNs and same crappy worsted weight lion’s brand wool in a highly unattractive brown. The heel turn came out much better as did picking up the stitches and closing that hole at the gusset. I don’t know what the final product will look like but so far it is considerably Less Full of Inexplicable Holes.

This fills my Heart with Gladness and Wonder because once I come around to spending life on DPNs I can move on and make more sock-shaped stuff and making socks has many advantages. A sock is a 1 ball project so sock projects are cheap! Sock projects are quick! Sock projects are portable! An entire sock project fits in my small knit project bag! Basic sock patterns can be committed to memory!

I see the addictive nature of knitting over crochet. Knitting is more precise and fiddly. It’s better for doing small, very precise work like patterns or colorwork. Or socks! It creates a smoother fabric. It’s better for tubes or fabric that has to be dense and hang right. But crochet is better for things like amigurumis where there are a bunch of different sized stitches all bunched together to make a shape like a wing or a nose or for big comfy things like blankets (I don’t really want to knit a blanket). I like crochet thread jewelry over trying to knit that stuff, especially with beads. Knit sweaters, socks, gloves, hats. Crochet accessories and stuffies.*

They’re both like mental crack, though: they completely clear the decks of whatever is going on to just count stitches and rows.

* I did buy the hand puppet kit from Knit Picks but those are, again, smooth tubes.

But. I made a sock. It fits on my foot. It has the general properties of being sock-like. It’s just a sad sock.

And I’m working on its mate! Which may be better. Or maybe not.

It’s sort of a victory over Man vs. Yarn. It’s the eighth sock I started but never got past the initial cuff. I’m a little disappointed that I am stuck with double pointed needles — I never got the two needle or magic loop methods to work. DPNs are an enormous pain and it feels like I’m knitting an overeager octopus. Little bits of wood and yarn are all over the place.

I feel like I have been admitted to some secret club. The Legion of Sock Knitters. Someone who can make a sock.

If the Zombie Apocalypse comes and I am trapped as a character in The Walking Dead, I have a functional skill to give back to the community — official Knitter of Socks. Well, providing we have sheep and spinning wheels… but that is details. Socks!

I have a little 3×3 plot for organic vegatable gardening. One of the squares doesn’t get enough sunlight during the day to grow adequately so that leaves me with 8 squares. Last year I had some massive vegatable planting over reach — I tried to start the seeds myself, I started too many seeds, etc. This year I decided on:

- 1 plant/foot.

Now, I am pretty certain if I went for density I could do 2 plants/foot, but this year I am trying careful planting. I bought my plants instead of started them from seeds so I don’t have to deal with hardening the plant. And beside, at Behnke’s, a plant is $1.69. Each plant already has a stake and is tied loosely to its stake to guide it properly as it grows. I have:

- 3 cherry tomato plants, each of different breeds to see how cherry tomatos do.
- 1 hungarian pepper
- 1 regular green pepper
- 1 jalapeño
- 1 cherry bomb pepper
- 1 pickling cucumber

Note the one cucumber. Last year the cucumbers ran amok and I had all cucumbers and nothing else. I had too many cucumber plants. This year, I reduced them by 2/3rds and already staked it so that it cannot go anywhere. Also, no herbs this year. While herbs grow fantastic, really fantastic, unbelievably fantastic, unless you’re really a huge fan of herbs and you cut them constantly, all that happens is they overgrow and overrun and then die.

I was tempted by the eggplant but no one I know eats eggplants. No squash for the same reason. I considered a zucchini but that means a lot of zucchini and I hear they overgrow worse than cucumbers.

We’ll see how this works out. I have serious high hopes for the cherry tomatos. Not only will they get cooked, but they’ll get eaten right off the vine. One thing from my childhood — fresh grown cherry tomatoes off the vine!

1. 1 $60 Final Fantasy XIII game for Xbox360
2. 2 $30 Pokemon carts for the DS, one for me and one for KR.

Thus Pokemon made its way into my house again because playing with Katie >> Final Fantasy. With great surprise I sat down with this game and was hooked on it like I was being fed some new kind of synthetic happy drug. I swear, this game pushes all my little happy brain buttons. I can pick it up and play it for hours. It has followed me around the house. I have played it for 40 hours now — that drops the cost/rate of return on my game below a $1 an hour — and I’m still ready to go.

- Want to play an RPG? It’s an RPG!
- Bored of the RPG? Play board games! Mini games! Fish!
- Tired of games and fishing? Breed pokemon! Trade pokemon! Breed them more! OMG MORE POKEMON!  Now go grind those guys up to their evolved forms…

One I got hooked on it I had to get others hooked on it. Now others are hooked on it and the wifi on the game is pretty decent for being a little DS so pokemon whizz through the aether to become bigger and better loved pokemon.

I have collected thus far 54 unique varieties. I hang my head. Honestly, the reviews don’t lie.

Really, we’re not even going to talk about the pokewalker add-on in my pocket because it’s just embarrassing. If you’re looking for a fun new DS game, I have to recommend this one. It’s like Mario Cart. You never get bored.

Beware, though: I have part one of the two-part hint book and that, alone, is 300 pages long. The full hint books cost more than the game! Gamefaqs has a pretty good pokemon section for those who want to go the cheap route.

* A Nintendo DS is the best selling gadget in the world. It is a closed system, requires custom tools to build games, and games must go through a lengthy process before they show up on store shelves. I am just sayin’.

2. Eric corrected me: you can still buy a regular hard-drive click-wheel iPod. They are available on the Apple site.

3. We did more experiments with the iPad and found, with a MiFi, it makes a more than acceptable travel Internetty netbook. Combined with the Apple bluetooth keyboard or the iGo stowaway, typing is pretty straight forward on the device. Eric dragged it around and the MiFi makes it a portable web machine.

4. I fiercely love This American Life and not just because Sarah Vowell is a frequent contributer. If you listen to only one podcast on earth, this is the one I recommend. This week’s episode, “The Inside Job,” has a great 40 minute piece on how hedge funds looted the economy with CDOs and CDSs. If you ever want to hear anything, listen to episode #355: Giant Pool of Money.

5. I am fiercely addicted to Pokemon: Heart of Gold. I have already put a staggering 40 hours into that game. As a flat-out fun and enjoyable DS game, I completely recommend it. And if you have friends (or children) playing it with you and trading pokemon with you, then the game is fantastic.

6. I am pissed there’s no Borges available for the Kindle. KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

7. Wil Wheaton on Big Bang Theory tonight! You should all watch it. Really. You SHOULD.

PAX had this very nice room where one could wander in and check out a game and play it for 45 minutes – hour. The library was large and it spanned multiple different game systems. Want to try out a PS3? Sure. Want to check out this weird game you heard about? Go ahead!

I was alone, and I wanted to play something where I would have no emotional investment. So I checked out Bayonetta. The guys working the room asked me three times if I really wanted to play this game and I said yeah, of course I did.

This game is, to put it simply, horrifically, awfully awesome. It is so awful it actually makes that loop to becoming good again. In essence: you are a DEMON NUN WITH GUNS AND KUNG-FU. You are beating up the ANGELS OF HEAVEN. God has it in for you, personally. And you, like, kung-fu on a bunch of angels and you head down to purgatory and hang out and you get magic witchy hair powers that let you walk on water and dodge lightning and then you go hang out in a bar in hell to buy your powerups. Blah blah blah plot and cut scenes — I kept hitting “skip cutscenes” so who knows what the plot is about.

Really, SEGA, you had me at DEMON NUN. The guns and kung-fu are just added bonuses.

People wandering the room had to stop and stare at what I was playing. By time I got kicked off, I had a small audience who partook of my terrible run-through of the game. There was a small “aw” when I turned it off.

Dude, I totally don’t know if I could recommend this game or not. I just know, like, DEMON NUN.