I just caught myself suggesting that my boyfriend go to Amazon.com and Google for a particular MP3.
Bad use of word Google, a trademark of Google, Inc. Bad, bad. No intellectual property treats for me.
28 September 2007
15 September 2007
Value Added (Not)
It’s interesting how so many craft supplies are worth more in their unused state than they are once they’ve been made into something.
Take sock yarn. A pair’s worth of sock yarn can run from $10 to $25 and up. How much would you be able to sell the socks for? Judging from eBay, maybe $15-$30. Given how many hours it takes to make a pair of socks, you’d come out ahead by throwing the yarn in the trash and working a shift at Burger King.
Or my new huge project, a latch hook kit my dad sent me. Shillcraft just went out of business, so we could probably get a few hundred bucks for this thing on eBay. But who’s going to spend that much for the finished rug, let alone a price that reflects the number of hours it’s going to take me to make the thing? Not many people.
Progress on other things that I’m doing for fun rather than profit:
The Wildwood shawl is done and in the mail. I probably should have gotten a better picture of it, but oh well. The Casablanca socks are also done.
I’ve knitted smidgens on other projects. The OnLine socks, the Ivy socks, the Regia Bamboo socks, the Aran sweater, Clapotis, the Flower Basket shawl, the loud Turkish Sweater; all have a few more rows.
In loom news, the sample scarf I did on the rigid heddle loom is done, and looks dismal because a few of the warp threads wound unevenly and are shorter than the rest. I may full it just to see what happens. The four-harness scarf, fortunately, seems to be looking better; it’s only about a foot away from being done.
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3 September 2007
A Mess of Books
Tom Deitz, The Gryphon King. Honestly, this book stays in my library due to sentiment. Not that it’s bad; it’s a very enjoyable urban fantasy with colorful characters. But if I were reading it for the first time now, I don’t think it’d be in my keeper stack.
P. G. Wodehouse, The Girl in Blue. I attempted to summarize this book’s plot for my boyfriend, and I failed miserably. There’s just too much going on, and just about every single incident and character ties into the story; you couldn’t drop any without leaving a hole. Plus it’s great fun and has a lot of dry humor.
Paul Darrow, You’re Him, Aren’t You? Darrow’s autobiography, including a lot of stories from his years on Blakes 7. This is one of the rare cases where I wish I were listening to an audiobook rather than reading a dead tree book. The book is reasonably interesting, and there’s a lot of great anecdotes, but especially in the beginning, it’s a somewhat choppy read. If I were listening to it (preferably read by Darrow himself, of course!), I’d have enjoyed it much more.
And dear $DEITY, the font. This book was designed by someone desperate to cut down the number of signatures to save money; the font is tiny and hard for me to read, let alone someone who might have actually seen B7 in its original run.
Still, the one benefit of the bumpy structure is that it’s easy to read a couple pages, put the book down, and come back to it later — perfect bathroom reading. And some of the stories are fabulous, particularly some episodes in Darrow’s childhood that made me think of Miles Vorkosigan.
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility. Still a great book; still even more entertaining than the (very good) film adaptations I’ve seen.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Egypt Game. A great children’s book that I still love as an adult. I notice the time it’s set (the 1960s) more on this read than on earlier readings.
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night. The first time I read it, about eight years ago, I greatly enjoyed it (and still have “What would that matter, if it made a good book?” on one of my computer monitors), but it didn’t echo in my mind the way it does this time. Partnership and creative work. Sorting out what one should do from what one is asked to do. Choices and consequences. Wow. How did I miss all that the first time?
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