I still haven’t heard anything. I really do get palpitations everytime the phone rings. I’ll post something the instant that I get word. Sorry that there wasn’t a post yesterday.

In the mean time I’ve been watching the Tales of the City mini-series’. (And kniting on a never ending sleeve.)

I really like the Tales’ story. I’ve only read the books once, in short order. I’d read them again except there are six--seven now--and well, when you pick one up, you basically have to finish it. My mother reports the same problem: apparently she started reading one when I was little, and lost a day.

I remember sitting down with a stack of them next to a chair when I was staying with my grandmother when I was probably fifteen, and I read all six books in like 4 or five days, and I don’t think I moved much.

The television show is similar.

There’s something about the pacing that I think is really appealing. I mean the characters are perfectly constructed, but I think fundamentally, my love of the stories has to do with the pacing, which comes from it’s origins as a newspaper serial. So each of the chapters/interludes is around 1000 words (800-ish?) and is so complete and rich. There’s something so perfect about these books for me.

The first time I watched these events unfold, I of course didn’t know what was going to happen, so I fell for a character that ends up being an ass, I got wrapped up in (one of) the great love stories, which ends in the most tragic way. Or, not really, but it feels like that. And in a certain way, it feels hard to watch friends make the same mistakes all over again.

Anyway, I’m well, and with luck I’ll still have my mind when this is over.

Regards, tycho

• I plyed a ball of spindled yarn. 7 more grams. No clue on yardage.
• I’m eight rounds away from being half way done with the bulk (but not all) of this sleeve. In reality, this means that the sleeve is like 8 inches long, but saying it in other ways is less depressing.
• I have been asked to do an essoteric folk music show on KDHX this Saturday for an hour. This is kind of funny in an annoying sort of way.
• I blocked the sweater that I’ve been whining about for a long time. The blocking fixes most of my concerns and I think about 10 minutes with a steam iron and I can fix the remaining concern. (I paid too much attention to the shoulders and the sleeves aren’t right as a result.) But it’s good. The code name for this sweater on the blog is “Turkish Tile.”
• I suspect that my fate at one of my schools is being decided as I write this, and I should have formal news by Wednesday I suspect. Eek. I’m of distracted mindset as a result of this, but because I’m so helpless to do anything, its all very “free floating.” There’s a reason I’m not really trying to write a coherent post this morning.
• I’m slowly easing my way back into the ravelry community, because’ve been absent from those forums for a while. That’s nice.
• I have errands to do this morning:
  • get a zipper
  • get copies of keys made
• I’m going to go dancing tonight, third night in a row. Oy. I really like dance, lets not get this confused, but as a social outlet, it sucks (particularly for someone my age, particularly when people are stupid), and while the activity rocks it’s all centered around social interaction. Now, to be fair, Morris dance is better than other things (under some conditions, and yesterday was great), but, wow. I’m not really complaining, just, balking at the absurdity, really.
• I’ve been watching Enterprise, still, I think I have eight episodes left.
• I can’t decide if it’s really bad or if it’s using irony effectively. Like, there was an episode arc with Orion “Slave Girls,” which tied into an original series episode that was basically an excuse to have almost naked women painted green. This episode wasn’t much different, though we learn at the end that the Orion “Slave Girls” were basically commandos, and that they were “in charge” of the Orion culture. Which, I’ll accept as a good faith effort on the part of the writers to right a trek-wrong, even if it was sort of poorly handled, and felt like an afterthought. To a large extent, the same thing goes for the Mirror Universe stuff (a woman ends up in power at the end of the arc, despite the fact that the whole arc feels like an excuse to see the actress’ mid-sections), though I would say that all of the previous interest in Mirror Universe stuff comes from seeing “our” characters interact with their “evil” counterparts, and that’s basically missing from enterprise.
• I think my next television series watching project is going to be something more interesting. I have “tales of the city” DVDs to watch, and that’s next. After that, shrug.

I should hear from graduate school this week. Wow.

I’ve been knitting my on the sleeve pretty intently for the last couple of days. Not working on the sock. I have two pattern repeats done, of six, before the final 74 row pattern repeat. In other words, I’m nowhere near done, but I’m making progress, and this first little bit is always difficult because there are so many stitches. I’ve already decreased, for instance, 42 stitches. My hope is to get another 12-20 stitches decreased today.

Slowly but surely.

I also thought my way though my next knitting pattern. While I had been thinking that I would knit a drop shouldered v-neck pull-over, because I wanted to knit something that I thought I could reliably wear, I’m thinking that I’m going to knit a zipper cardigan, in a recreation/alteration of a sweater that I made about a year ago. And I thought that I’d do it after Meg Swansen’s “Saddle Shoulder Aran Cardigan,” except, you know, in color work. It means doing the sleeves from the cuff, upwards.

I’m looking forward to this, and I think that having a more concrete design goal in mind makes finishing up this project more enticing.

And I want to get through some of my spinning in the next couple of days/weeks, I did a little wheel spinning today, and I have some drop spindle to wind off, and there are errands, and what not. Oh, I set the twist in a couple skeins that I spun earlier this season, and they are quite nice, in their own way.

And that’s most of the news that’s fit to sing.

Onward and Upward!

I really need to be better and titling these posts.

I spent this morning catching up on my correspondece, mostly which needed to be done, and it was good to write with some readers. I hear some people (and others, to be fair) complain about being overwhelmed by reader email, and my only response is to feel deeply jealous. Not my best emotive moment, but it’s there.

Only a few more days till I get word about graduate school from the leading option at the moment. I’m almost a-fluter with nervous energy, but it’s not entirely unenjoyable. Want. So. Much.

I’ve been focusing on knitting and writing about knitting, because that seems to be reflexive at this point, and I think I don’t think I’m in the right psychic space to write fiction that I’d be happy with at this point, so I think it’s legitimate to work on projects that I’m more likely to be happy with. Reasonable? Nu?

Regarding my knitting, I have 3-4 inches done on take two of this sleeve, and I’ve done the first 15 of 73 decreases. There are more than 73 sets of decreases, but I haven’t read that far in the pattern (big armhole, small gauge). I think being done with this soon is going to be good for the way I feel about my knitting.

Regarding my backlog of projects: I have the sleeves/hem/neck of the sweater I’m currently working on, plus the sleeves neck, and saddle of the perpetual gray sweater (which I don’t think really counts) and a pair of socks on the needles. I have a bit of a stash worked up (two sweaters, four pairs of socks), with some intense leftovers (I could spend 60 bucks on yarn and have enough for four sweaters, or something absurd, not to mention countless hats).

I’m in pretty good shape.

Anyway, I’m off to be a hipster in a coffee shop.

ta! Onward and Upward!

My mother and I decided to set the twist in our stash of unset handspun. I had two skeins and she hand three, and they’re currently almost dry on the fence in the backyard. This inspired me to do a little blocking of the sweater that I’ve been dreading for some weeks.

And you know, I let it soak for a long time, and I have it laid out on our blocking mat and, by gum, I actually kind of like this sweater now. I was able to sort of mold the neck line into a slightly more appealing shape, and with luck, it will be a good sweater. It’ll be a couple of days before it’s dry, and hopefully it’ll soften up a bit (as this yarn typically does.)

In other knitting related news, I’ve begun reknitting the sleeve that we ripped out yesterday. It was cathartic, but not as much as I would have liked. And I have a lot of knitting to do to catch up with myself. Sigh.

In other knitting news (look folks, a whole post with only one topic!) my mother has set a project goal with herself: she’s going to make ten pairs of socks before she starts on any more lace or sweater projects. Well, she’s already started the first two pairs of socks, so eight more to go, and she expects this little endeavor to take until June.

Because she’s recalcitrant and doesn’t have (or want) a blog of her own, I’m going to be posting entries with updates of her projects whenever she sends me pictures. Because, you know, I can, and it seems cool.

I’m sort of making my own knitting goals. Finish the projects that are currently in progress. Knit from stash. Never have more than one sweater on the needles at once, or if you do, don’t have two color work or two plain sweaters in progress at the same time. Less interesting perhaps, but I think they’ll add a bit of much needed structure to my life.

Structure here I come! Onward and Upward!

I still don’t know anything about graduate school.

I still need to find more regular employment.

I still need to do more work on tealart, and write in a more focused way.

But, I got into *`Knitting Camp <http://www.schoolhousepress.com/>`_* this year. And not only that, I got into camp 3. Which is super cool, because not only is my Camp Roomate/Buddy going to be there (obviously,) knitting mentor R, and others that I’m looking forward to meeting. There are, by my count going to be 4 men-folk at this camp (counting myself), which seems pretty cool.

I am, of course, quite excited.

Also, happy leap day. Lets ignore the fact that just yesterday, in a moment of brain-hiccup, I said, “good thing it’s not a leap year, because it’s ‘06.”

Sigh.

In lieu of actually making a podcast, I’m going to list a few songs that I’ve been listening to a lot on repeat over the past couple of weeks. Because you know, I can. In no particular order

1. Fiest - Mushaboom
2. Linda Thompson - Versatile Heart
3. Richard and Linda Thompson - Dimming of the Day
4. Richard Thompson - One Door Opens
5. Jorma Kaukonen - Stars in my Crown
6. Linda Thompson - Katy Cruel
7. Kitka - Subrali Sa Se Subrali
8. Kitka - Pustono Ludo I Mlado
9. Richard Thompson - The Old Changing Way
10. La Bouttiine Souriane - Le Zigezon (The Sunspot Song)

• My comptuer was anoying all morning. On the upside I now have a new torchwood episode to watch.
• Dose anyone else know if XTorrent is particularly unstable on PowerPCs? Because it’s comically bad on my computer. I know there are other programs that I could use, my logic in using this one isn’t good admittedly. Just wondering.
• I did some playing around with R last night. I like it. I’m not sure if my failure to grok properly is the result of having a pretty elementary understanding of statistics, or the fact that I have a pretty elementary understanding of programing. Or the fact that, by all accounts the documentation seeems to be written by a non-native speaker, which might be complicating problems 1 and 2. But it’s very cool, and I sort of get it.
• I’m thinking of running some sort of basic study this spring/summer on my own using some publicly available content as data. Like newsgroup postings or some such. With the hopes of being able to understand these tools in time for next year, and hopefully I’ll get something good out of it.
• My turn to looking at these statistics programs and what not, I’ve gotten back to reading about object oriented programing and smalltalk, as it’s at least a little relevant, which I enjoy because it inspires a way of logical thinking which I don’t get to spend very much time in. And that’s inspiring in it’s own way.
• Not much knitting or writing news, alas. Still haven’t written the sleeve, and I had work and dancing last night and I have something this morning before work, so not much opportunity there, and I’ve spent what time I have writing this note to you. ;)
• No grad school news.

Onward and Upward!

It’s been days since I wrote a journal entry. This reflex to blathering about my life is a sickness.

On the up side I’ve started writing more things that are, not this kind of entry on my own, so that’s an improvement. At the same time, I’m having a hard time conceptually holding together the argument for an essay for any length of time. Maybe I’m just out of practice. Anyway, this concentration/focus/mental discipline issue is something I need to spend some time on.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that I’m not really successful at trying to write fiction at the moment; I think that I would really be displeased with the results.

I wrote a knitting pattern yesterday. For a toe-up sock. This is my basic “easy/mindless” sock, and I really like the way that it turns out, so it’s good that I’ve been able to write this sort of pattern out for the general good. I plan to do some layout/production work, and get it up on the tealArt site. Woot. There are other knitting related writing projects that I’d like to get more finished so I can queue them up.

I’ve also begun to make it possible for me to post entries to tychoish.com that won’t get cross-posed to my live-journal. I think some rants and what not are better kept off live-journal, and I think modularity is a good thing in this regard.

I just did my taxes. That was both easy and impressively uninspiring all at the same time. Feh.

I think I’m going to wait till I hear (good news) from (a) graduate school(s) to make the new computer order. It’s reasonable, it’s not that long, I don’t think I’ll regret anything. I’m really, surprisingly conflicted about this, because it feels like a luxury and not a need thing. Zoe--current computer--was a luxury as well: my mum needed a computer for work and it made sense at the time for her to take my 12" g4 iBook (which remains a very good/useable machine) and me to get the PowerBook. It wasn’t a necessary upgrade, but I had a really good justification.

Ok, I’m cutting the rest of the blather about the computer to below the fold, because, that just seems reasonable. There’s not much else for me to report, really. I’ll be in touch. You be too!

The truth is that I use a computer a lot. I’m a serious geek. But you knew that. While my other “hobbies” (reading, knitting) also require the expenditures of income, I’m really economical about them. I buy in bulk, I shop around, I don’t stash yarns, and for the last 4 months I’ve been working in a yarn store, so I get a mean discount which I will confess to not using very much (I’ve gotten, one sweater project and a skein of yarn that has made/will make 2 pairs of socks). So yeah. Frugal, and good at resisting temptation…

And the truth is that I don’t really buy other computer accessories. I may be a geek, but I’m not really a gadget person. In the time that I’ve had Zoe, I’ve spent ~175 dollars on an external hard drive. Period. So for the amount of use it gets, and the way that a(ny) computer facilitates, projects that are of prime importance to me (my work online, writing, etc.) having a more current tool wouldn’t be a bad thing. So, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. But then, you know reason and necessity aren’t exactly the same thing.

Here’s an entry where I dither on about the pros and cons of upgrading the computer system.

Mostly it’s kind of boring, except if you want to know what runs through my head when ever I make a decision of any sort.

If that’s the case, I pity you.

Pro

1. My computer is nearly 3 years old. In this time, apple has seriously revised the machines in nearly every possible way. Though most noticeably, the new processors substantially outperform the 1.67 G4 that I have a the moment
2. My old computer isn’t completely dead and will serve it’s next owner pretty well.
3. I’m still using tiger, (10.4) and I’d have to spend $129 dollars to upgrade this computer to the new operating system, which I think I’m about due for. This isn’t incredibly crucial… but if my computer were going to be useable in a long term, rather than short term way, I’d want leopard and a new battery (the current one gets $120). Even though I’m cheap, and probably wouldn’t spend the 240, this is a further justification, but then that’s what this list is about.
4. They just released new revisions today, and are unlikely to do so again till August or September. The computer I could order tomorrow, is the same as the one I could get for the next six months or so, likely at the same price. I don’t know if I want to wait that long, in any case. If I get into graduate school, I don’t think I want to be moving and upgrading in the same month (if I waited till the next release,) and if I don’t, well, uncertainty.
5. There are some things that I’ve stopped using, or avoid using because they are painfully slow to use in the current configuration. They include quicksilver, bit torrent, media (photo/sound) editing. Also, I’m pretty quick to keep unused applications off, (My base stack is: Quicksilver, Adium, TextMate, Mail.app, Safari, NetNewsWire. Sometimes I have VLC or Preview open as well. That’s it, and that works ok, but it’s limited.)
6. The new computer wouldn’t have a metal case and would therefore be better at picking up wireless signals. Grr. Ok, minor annoyance, and I have no problem picking up signals anywhere that I currently use the computer, but still, this is one of the many things that I’m looking forward to upgrading.
7. I’d be able to, with the new huge hard drive, be able to keep my music collection on my computer without crimping performance. By now, I have an 80+ gig iTunes Library, and a 100 gig hard drive. For a year, I’ve kept the iTunes library on an external hard drive.

Con

1. The old computer still works, and I really can’t imagine that there’s something new that I’d want to do with the computer that I couldn’t do with the current computer. It might not be as
2. I plan to buy a second power cord this time around, but I have three that work with my current computer, so that’s a step down in terms of features.
3. My income particularly given that I’m still waiting on The Word, is unsure. So spending 1300 dollars, given this, seems silly. The instant that I’m more sure, then this all makes a lot more sense. Making the order, now, without The Word, is probably not incredibly wise. At the same time, I’ve had the money for a new machine set aside for many months, incase there was some sort of sudden failure of the present computer. It is already in the budget for this summer, (see #4 above; this is probably the crux of my argument.)