A new Joss Whedon project? Check.
Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, and Neil Patrick Harris? Check.
And they’re all singing? Double-check.
Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.
I love reading blogs. I love how blogs can offer intellectual and creative stimulation. And I love how blogs can point me in directions I hadn’t seen before.
A lot of this pointing takes the form of links. I don’t click through every link I see, but when one grabs my interest I hover the cursor over it and look at the URL in the status bar at the bottom of my browser to see if the link looks clickworthy.
On some sites, though, my placid cursor-hovering is interrupted by a little window that pops up in the middle of my screen: a Snap Shot.
I hate these things. Loathe them.
First, they obscure a good chunk of the surrounding text. Here I am, merrily reading along, when suddenly one of those little windows appears and completely derails my train of thought.
Second, the Snap Shot windows are so small that they’re actually useless. (Note that I am not advocating any embiggening.) Whatever text and images appear in them are barely discernible from the noise in the window. If there’s a link to, say, Matthew Fox in a Speedo*, that little window isn’t going to show much. If I really want to see Matthew Fox in a Speedo, I’m going to have to follow that link.
Third. if I want to know where a link goes, I find it far more useful to just look at the URL. The URL of a blog post can reveal a ton of information, including the website, post title, and post date.
Fortunately, there are ways for site visitors to avoid seeing those annoying windows: by disabling Snap Shots. Apparently, the company has had enough complaints about this product that they’ve included this info in their FAQ; just follow the link in #3 on the list. Unfortunately, this solution requires cookie placement and has to be reactivated whenever your cookies are deleted.
If you’re using Firefox and running the AdBlock Plus extension (which is awesome), you’re in luck: you can get rid of those Snap Shots forever. (Well, for as long as you’re running AdBlock Plus. Which is so awesome that you’ll never want to get rid of it. So yeah, I guess that does mean forever.) Check here for the details. (Opera users will find their solution in the comments to that post.)
*That one’s just for you, Gina!
Three weeks ago, the renowned knitblogger Franklin came to the Philadelphia area to take pictures for his 1000 Knitters photography project. His shooting location: Wool Gathering, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Kennett Square is the Mushroom Capitol of the World, just down the road from the Brandywine River Museum (more Wyeths than you can shake a stick at), home to a Revolutionary War sites, and only about half an hour from my house. So of course I had to go.
Five people from my local knitting group (plus the mother of one of them) arranged to meet at the shop at 11:30. I got there first and found a very interesting performance in progress. The tiny store was packed with people (Franklin and his setup, though not huge, did take up a good chunk of the inside space next to the storefront window), and the sidewalk outside was covered with knitters, chatting away and knitting on various projects.
After I put my name down on the list, I looked around inside the store for a bit, hoping to find something that would work well for Sylvia’s sweater (I didn’t). Fortunately, just next door was a terrific cafe where my friends and I (and Jan and Sylvia, who’d tagged along for the outing) grabbed lunch while we waiting for our numbers to be called. Good thing the cafe was there, too, because we had to wait about an hour and a half. Franklin was snapping away as quickly as he could, but there were a lot of people there (several of whom, as I overheard, had traveled from a few states away, even!).
When number 78 was called, I handed Franklin the model-release form, shook his hand, picked up the scarf, and took my place on the stool in front of the white backdrop. When I looked at the scarf, I was surprised to find that the stitches were all “backward” (i.e., the right “legs” were behind the needle rather than in front of it). My far-more-knowledgeable-than-me knitting friends explained to me later that the previous knitter had used a different knitting style; me, all I know is plain ol’ vanilla knitting and purling, so I didn’t really know what to do with those stitches. So I just knit into the left legs—and found out later that I should have knit into the right legs. (Fortunately, my friend Debbie, who was number 79, said she had no trouble working with the stitches I’d left for her.)
So what was it like to sit in front of Franklin’s camera for three or four minutes? I’m fairly self-conscious in front of a lens and don’t feel particularly photogenic. But he did a great job of putting me at ease, and what impressed me the most was his ability to conduct a coherent, engaging conversation with me while I sat there. He posted in his blog later that he’d photographed 131 people that day (wow), and although I certainly didn’t see all of them I did get to see him interact with several people. And in all of those interactions, he was grateful (we are, after all, providing him with free material for this project, which he hopes to turn into a book), gracious, and actually interested in what knitters had to say and the stories they told him.
It was a very warm day (one of those too-warm days that hit before the air conditioning is turned on), and he was working at a pretty steady clip. But I was really impressed with his interest in the knitters as people, not just as photographic subjects. And the fact that he was able to talk with each one of them is pretty amazing.
So if Franklin and his photography project make a stop in or near your hometown, I very much recommend spending a few minutes in front of his camera. Aside from the opportunity to meets lots of knitters and participate in an interesting project, you also get a chance to meet a nice person. And you know, that sort of opportunity doesn’t come around every day.
I recently read a very thoughtful post that wondered if swaps were bad for the environment. After all, there’s a lot of packaging and transportation resources going into these things. If swaps are just about getting stuff from other people, then maybe we ought to help out the planet and stop doing them.
For me, though, swaps are about meeting other people–with whom I have something in common–I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. I believe that people who do swaps just to get yarn, tea, whatever from someone else should just buy that stuff for themselves if they want it. I haven’t participated in many swaps, but I’ve been fortunate to become friends with several of my partners. We keep up with each others’ blog, send letters, and just generally keep in touch. I like it. And it’s those experiences that make the swap experience so worthwhile for me.
The swaps I’ve done have been ones I found on knitting blogs. If you, too, have an itch to meet some fellow knitters, crafters, vegetarians, dog-owners, stamp collectors, music lovers, whatever, here are a few places you can look.
Swap-bot has been around for over two years, and I think I first heard of it some time last year. A quick perusal of the offerings can be paralyzing: there are so many possibilities. Christmas-themed swaps are on the “most popular” list for now, but you can also find swaps for wind-up toys, lists of secrets, digital photos of pets, postage stamps, and handmade paper.
A new blog, SwapDex, also covers many types of crafts. It does (so far) lean heavily toward knitting swaps.
…to tell you that Martians are currently invading Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.
Er, I mean we’ve been having a few technical problems with the blog lately. (This is not news to those of you who’ve had some trouble seeing parts of the blog or even accessing it at all.) First the database files went and got all corrupt, and then the server went wonky for a bit. But everything is all straightened out now!
When I was in high school, a friend of mine whose mother served on the local city council told me about what her mother had endured as one of the few people willing to stand up to anti-Planned Parenthood protesters. A new PP clinic had just opened in a small strip mall along one of the busiest roads in the area. As in most cities, this road didn’t have sidewalks alongside it, and the people who turned out daily to protest the clinic wanted the city to put in a sidewalk for them to walk on as they marched with their signs.
My friend’s mother was one the most vocal opponents of this proposition—she was horrified that taxpayers might be asked to make what amounted to a donation to the protesters. She got dirty looks, overheard muttered disparaging comments, and was rudely treated by several of her fellow council members. She stood her ground, though, and the protesters never got their publicly funded sidewalk. (They did get permission to pay for and build a sidewalk of a certain length—something like twenty feet. The sidewalk was built, and though I don’t know how much use it got I do know that whenever I’ve visited my parents over the past fifteen years or so, I’ve never seen a single person on it.)
At least she never got death threats, though. I’ve heard here and there stories on both sides of the debate over reproductive rights, and it was in Faye Ginsburg’s excellent (and balanced) Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community (which I read in a grad school seminar on narrative) that I first encountered in-depth narratives on the subject.
A few days ago, a friend sent me a link to a fairly new blog called I Am Emily X, “the true-life diary of a frontline Planned Parenthood worker and activist.” At the bottom of the homepage, a note points out “For their safety and protection, Emily X represents a small handful of Planned Parenthood workers and activists, who may or may not be named Emily.” So I guess it’s technically a collaborative, anonymous blog. (You can read the history of the blog here.)
This blog started as a response to anti-choice/pro-life/whatever activists’ call to picket PP clinics for forty days starting September 26. “Emily” posts nearly every day about something that’s happened at a clinic—some encounter with a protester that’s scary or frustrating, some interaction with a patient that makes it worth all the trouble. The blog is also a PP fundraiser, where, in a curious twist on the walk-a-thon, visitors can pledge to donate a certain amount (as little as five cents) per protester or just make a fixed donation.
It’s been interesting to read, and not just because I’ve long been a fan of Planned Parenthood and what they do. Take a look for yourself.
(If you’re wondering what exactly they do, check out this post from Bitch PhD. In addition to a discussion of PP services—of which only three percent are abortions, you’ll find a link to this post by a medical student, who describes his ignorance about PP until he did an OB/GYN rotation there.)
My mother-in-law lives three hours (mostly) north of me, and about one hour from the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, where the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival is taking place this weekend. You know, Rhinebeck–the fiberfest whose name is spoken in hushed, reverential tones.
I first heard about Rhinebeck last fall–when knitting blogs were teeming with post-Rhinebeck reports, “you’ll never guess what famous person I saw there” sightings, and “look at my yarn haul” photos. I felt like I’d missed the boat on something all the popular kids already knew about. And now that I knew about it (but still wasn’t one of the popular kids), I resolved to attend the next Rhinebeck.
So I hatched a plan: Jan, Sylvia, and I would drive up to his mom’s place on Friday, spend the night there, and get to the festival bright and early the next morning. We’d all get a kick out of seeing the animals and participating in the hustle-bustle of a big festival, and I could pet and maybe even purchase some can’t-get-this-stuff-anywhere-else yarn. The plan expanded to include our friend Gina, who decided to come with us, leaving her uninterested-in-yarn husband, Todd, home to look after their six (yes, six cats). (And yes, they are nuts. “They” being both the humans and the cats.)
But a few weeks ago, I looked at my stash (not huge by any means, but there’s enough in it to keep me busy for a while) and my bank account (not huge by any means, but there’s enough to pay the bills–but not enough to take a big hit from festival-euphoria-induced yarn purchases) and decided to stay home. If Rhinebeck were an hour away from me, yeah, I’d probably go. But four hours there plus an overnight plus four hours back add up to far too much time and effort to make a trip just to look at yarn (but not purchase) and other nice stuff worthwhile.
(There are several wool/knitting festivals in my part of the country, but I’ve yet to attend one. This reminds me of my experience with academic conferences: many of my fellow graduate students were barely scraping together funds or sometimes even going into debt in order to go to academic conferences, but I didn’t attend one until late in my grad school career, when there was one close to my university and I could actually afford to go to it.)
Gina took the news well, thankfully, and I’ve decided to start saving my pennies now for next fall’s Rhinebeck. Or maybe I’ll try Maryland Sheep and Wool* in May (which I’ve not attended because my daughter’s birthday has fallen on the same weekend) or Knitters Day Out in September (which I’ve not attended because my anniversary has fallen on the same weekend). Next year, all those weekends are free of other events (thank you, Leap Year!), and I’ll be ready for them!
(* Take a look at the URLs for the NYS Sheep and Wool and Maryland Sheep and Wool websites. Think there were any fisticuffs over who got which one?)
We just got home after a long weekend (we left Friday afternoon) visiting my parents in Illinois.
I checked e-mail twice while I was there–just popping in quickly to see if there were any fires to put out. (There weren’t. Whew!) So now I am tending to the unread and the deal-with-it-later e-mails I have.
I haven’t checked my Google Reader since last Thursday evening, though. I just opened it up on a separate tab (three cheers for tabbed browsing!) and as soon as I saw “All items (501)” my eyes sort of glazed over. Yes, that’s five hundred and one new posts. I’m a little scared to return to that tab to start the process of getting caught up on things.
How will I tackle this? To paraphrase Anne Lamott, I’ll just take it blog by blog.
Twelve people entered my blog-birthday contest, which asked entrants to name the three things they’d take with them to a desert island (and explain why).
In spite of some similarities (many said they’d bring an Internet-connected computer–who needs to bring a boat to use to get off the island when you’ve got e-mail and blogs to keep up with, right?), there was a lot of variety in the responses. Food items such as coffee and good wine made it to the list, as did spouses, children, and pets. Some people thought in terms of basic survival (Leatherman tool, anyone?), and the knitters all put yarn on their lists (though one declared that he wouldn’t need to bring needles because he’d make his own from twigs–talk about resourceful!).
I posted my own answers, too, and briefly considered making those items the prize package for this contest. But a solar-powered computer was way out of my budget, and tastes in yarn vary wildly (and not all entrants are yarnophiles). And Chuck Norris said he was too busy.
So I opted for stuff that I think would be nice to have on a desert island but didn’t necessarily make my list. (Come on, it’s hard to top a computer, yarn, and Chuck Norris, you know?)
Reading material: The Man Who Planted Trees, by Jean Giono. (And I’m delighted that the end of this contest coincides with Buy a Friend a Book Week. Hooray!)
Sustenance: Cherry Moon Green Tea (mildly caffeinated, so you can be alert when the rescuers arrive!), and chocolate from Iceland’s Nói Siríus’
Skin care: Pure shea butter soap from the Out of Africa project (the soap is handmade by women’s cooperatives in Benin, West Africa, and a portion of the price helps fund children’s education in Benin), and all-natural lip balm (with “NO FAKE CRAP” on the label–love it!)
Optimism: An affirmation ball (because when you’re marooned on a desert island, more than ever you need to be told nice things like “You smell nice” and “You rock!”)
It took some coaxing, but I managed to get Sylvia to draw a name from the hat, er, mixing bowl. The winner is Jennu!
Thanks, everyone, for playing! I really had a fun time running this contest and seeing what sorts of things people came up with. I can definitely see another contest in my future. Soon. Stay tuned.
I figured that, in all fairness, I ought to answer the question I’m asking the rest of you to answer.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve opted not to bring any family members (human or feline) with me. They probably wouldn’t enjoy it there, and I figure someone needs to be coordinating rescue efforts to find me. (Here’s hoping it’s the humans and not the cats who are in charge of this…)
So here’s my list:
If you’d like to join in the fun, go here to read the details of this contest. Be sure to put your comments after that post (not this one) so I can find them. The winner will be chosen at the end of this month!
(which I read in a grad school seminar on narrative) that I first encountered in-depth narratives on the subject.