yarnporn.com

just use YouTube.

I’d forgotten the combination on my bike lock and was not looking forward to taking cutters to the cable to get it off. I watched the video, and in under two minutes I had the mad skills of a master locksmith. Yay!

Okay, maybe not the master of anything other than being a somewhat absent minded bicyclist. I can be at peace with that.

I can’t be at peace with is how easy it is to hack my own lock. If some idiot watching a 1 minute YouTube video (that would be me) can unlock my lock in the next minute– how safe is my bike? Maybe I should just scrap the lock and buy a more secure one. But what if I lose the key or forget the combination again and it’s not hackable? Then I lose the lock because calling a locksmith would cost more than taking cutters to the lock, I have prior experience with this very dilemma– can you tell?

I was going to head down to the library today, I forgot that it was Sunday and they tend to frown on patrons breaking in and perusing the books when they are closed so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

There’s this issue. A sensitive issue. A blight really.

I’m not sure there’s a delicate way to bring this up but its a topic that should discussed with frankness and maturity.

It’s called ‘muffin top‘ (and no we’re not talking about delightful baked goods) and it’s a plague. A pandemic. A very big problem.

A few years ago it seemed restricted to the 13-23 year old female population of this country, so I didn’t do much more than make the sign of the evil eye and avert my gaze. But now it’s infecting women my age, and I’m concerned, horrified, appalled, filled with fear and dread.

The cause of muffin top seems to be that women are no longer aware that they can buy clothing which fits some areas (namely the butt or waist areas whichever needs more room) and take them to this person called a tailor, or (gasp) an alterations seamstress. Seriously. Honestly. Hand on heart sincerely.

For as little as $10 a muffin top tragedy can be averted and pants can be cut and hemmed to the right length. All it takes is $10 and the will to survive, or at least the desire to live a somewhat normal life, and about an hour.

I bring this up because my neighbors teenage daughter has been a long time muffin top sufferer, but more recently this trend has affected her mother. Its so sad– now muffin top has infected a whole family.

I don’t know what I as a neighbor can do to help these poor people, so instead of maturely addressing my neighbor, woman to woman– I have decided to blog about it and expose the truth. Tailors (and perhaps some moderate diet and exercise) are the only known cure.

but I was one of the blogs that had iframes inserted into and was deemed dangerous by Google.

I’m safe now. Blog updated to the latest version, bad posts cleaned or kills and nasty files deleted. So now I need to check over my other blogs.

Fortunately all it did was was insert code to link to a bunch of stupid German casino sites and alter a few posts to talk about my phallus (how embarrassing for me– my tiny penis is a constant source of shame– those cruel bastards!)

Please go to Tips tricks tools & techniques to learn more about this attack, especially if you have a Wordpress blog. And if you notice a blog that is running particularly slow or see the IP address 61.155.8.157 transferring information email the blog owner so they can clear the nasties.

When I first heard about the proposed changes to the US copyright law, I thought it was just another internet rumor. I was wrong.

Before 1978 US copyright was an opt in system (unless we go back to the first English copyright laws in which case it was mandatory– because the monarchy wanted to know who to blame for certain works produced from that new fangled printing press.) In 1978 artists and writers were given an opt out system, meaning that from the time a piece was created (unless for commission) it automatically belonged to the creator of the work. Sonny Bono did something too, then he died– you’ll have to look it up on Wikipedia because I’m on a roll now.

Jump to now, where there is a legitimate problem with orphaned works, creative works that have no known copyright holder or the known copyright holder is dead without any apparent heirs but do not fall into the current definition of public domain. In an ideal world we (the public) would be able to hunt people down and ask for their permission or give fair use attribution, but this is often a less than ideal world so someone came up with a truly idiotic idea as a solution.

That idiotic idea is the revocation of automatic protection under copyright statutes, unless the creator(s) of a work submit it to a private registry within a period of time and goes easy on copyright infringers that can claim that they tried to find the original owner of a piece.

So if Mary wants to copyright her shawl pattern, under the proposed legislation she needs to pay a fee and register it with a private company (that as yet does not exist) and even if she does that an infringer can come along, create an obviously derivative work, and claim that they tried to track Mary down, but couldn’t so they aren’t liable for any damages to the value of Mary’s work. And if Mary’s name is on the shawl pattern but she didn’t register it (to a private company that does not exist yet) then she’s basically given it into the public domain as an orphaned work.

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but we’re primarily a service and entertainment supported country here in the US and this legislation would make it even easier to reduce the value of creative works by bootleggers and not very nice people.

Some links:

Op-ed in the NY Times

Photo advocates divided over Orphan works

Senate Committy OKs Orphan Works Bill

Great Danes were originally bred for hunting wild boar. When hunting wild boar went out of vogue, Great Danes evolved into the biggest sissy dogs on the planet. I tried to get Greta to tap into her primal ancestry and give me a noble boar hunting face.

We tried using the squeaky ball to imitate the grunting of an enraged wounded boar. Using a squeaky ball turns out to be a poor way to tap into primal energy.

We finally had to resort to gravity. (Greta is such a ham.)

Ah that’s better, it even gives her the cropped ear look.

(If you could just turn your monitor upside down, you’ll experience the terror that a wounded boar must have felt.)

Labs were also developed for hunting. Sunny knows this and taps into her primal side rather well.

There. Right there. That’s the kind of dog face that makes squeaky balls quake and squeal in terror. Yes. Very nice.

Now time to kiss Greta.

Awww.

I guess it’s obvious from the pics that we were taking advantage of the nice weather. I dread the end of spring break, come Monday I’m back to the books– and playing with the girls is so much more fun.

This buxom blond is Miss Sunnie, she’s 2 years old and a complete sweetheart. She’s also a typical lab personality; open, friendly and full of energy. Newest member of the household.

She’s also a little tuckered out at the moment.

Sunny is a leash puller, which (seeing as how she’s a hundred pounds of motivation) can be problematic, so I put her on the leash and we played stop and go game in the fenced portion of the yard. She’s catching on.

As I’m on spring break from my studies, I figure I have plenty of time to work with Sunnie on this part of being a nice dog. She’s already house broken, knows the basic commands, doesn’t bark, and is very polite so I have no doubt that she’ll understand that the leash is not meant to drag her humans around by the end of the week. (For, as Greta will tell you, the leash serves as a reminder to keep humans from running out into the street after ice-cream trucks and squirrels, it shouldn’t be used for discipline or as a control– a properly trained human respects the leash.)

Greta thinks Sunnie is the bomb, and after one good butt sniff she was delighted and acted as if Sunnie has always been her best friend– even though she did not approve of Sunnie laying on her couch, even best friends must have some boundaries. Sunnie now has her own pillow and Greta seems content to let the violation of the couch slide as a newbie mistake.

I don’t make New Years resolutions. I know myself well enough at this point to know that I’m a whimsical thing with a very short attention span. Besides, any day is a good day to start something better, why wait until the year passes?

So I wish:

I wish for world peace. I wish people could get the idea across to politicians (from the school board up to the executive branch) that peace starts in the home, in the neighborhood, and in the streets. If we want peace “over there” then we need to work on having it “over here.” (PS Violating and/or ignoring Constitutional rights does not produce peace anywhere at any time, nor does a police/nanny-state produce peace.)

I wish for slow news days, fair elections, and the front page coverage of cute baby animals from around the world.

I wish for affordable housing, wholesome food, and extravagant displays of art for everyone.

I wish the advancements of science and technology take more attention than the latest news of Paris Hilton. I wish Paris Hilton would find something useful to do with her existence.

I wish the public schools could complain of all the extra money (from private donations, not taxes) they have to assign to art, science, math, music, and life skills programs.

I wish for more bicycles on the streets, more trees in the cities, and more music everywhere.

I wish all of you a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.

White BFL, spinning wheel, fireplace, and 7 more days until I’m a slave to my schoolwork once more.

Here’s a screen cap of the pics on the auction for my new guitar. Don’t you love it? I like the Sex Pistols-esque “Hello Kitty” on the back. There was much debate on which was better for me, the pink or the black version, the font decided it all.

It’s a little disturbing and quite sweet that a concerned person emailed me to say that playing a Hello Kitty guitar might undermine my legitimacy and seriousness as a musician. At first I thought it was a joke. Then I realized this person has kindly overestimated my musical potential and emailed back explaining that legitimacy and seriousness are not things I’m known for musically.

For the record, I have a Hello Kitty waffle maker and I take waffles very seriously.

So what’s with the Hello Kitty stuff anyway?

Everything has a threshold, pass that threshold at the end of the spectrum and you flip into the extreme of the other side.

At one point in time all I wanted was a pair of black Chuck Taylors, a pair of Levi jeans that didn’t flair at the ankle and a gray and pink sweater. I got the Chucks. Then I got orthodic inserts which meant I couldn’t wear the Chucks, a leg brace, bifocals, orthodontic gear and back brace. Oh yeah, and my parents were in the middle of a bitter divorce.

There is no cool when you hit that point. It’s just cold.

I knew that, I gave up even trying. I picked a pair of Buddy Holly frames because they were the cheapest. I started buying pants at the military surplus store because they were not only cheap but because they concealed the leg brace. The shoes I wore (which I really had no choice, they were the only ones that were my size that could fit orthodics and my narrow feet) were ugly bulky British manufactured work boots and oxfords.

At this point in my life my favorite things included 4-H for dairy goats, home economics, reading, watching Monkees reruns, swimming and trying not to get beat up. Then I saw her. Hello Kitty. At age eleven I didn’t care about irony. I was just thinking how cute the t-shirt transfers bearing the pink maneki neko were.

I bought them.

I took them home and carefully transfered the happy Hello Kitty onto some t-shirts that I’d tye-dyed with the little kids when I volunteered to help at church day camp.

Hello Kitty made me smile.

Later, Hello Kitty and kawai stuff became sort of an in-joke. The back of my motorcycle jacket was painted with a pink Kitty-like skull, Misfits style, by a friend in high school. Kitty’s face was sandblasted into the headlight of my Norton Mk3 by the body shop guy I worked for one summer. My kayak was Kitty pink.

Sometimes my hair is Kitty pink. I have the aforementioned HK waffle iron, plus bento box, and Pez dispensers. I have a few kitty hair combs. I want to buy the Kitty sewing machine for the kids.

Hello Kitty still makes me smile.

How can I describe myself musically?

I will never be accused of selling my soul at the crossroads.

I played dulcimer in church and trumpet in school band. I wanted to play violin at church and flute in the band, but as you may have guessed; my parents hated me. Want to get your kid beat up at school and church? A dulcimer is the way to go.

My voice was not produced to make the sweet plaintive music of the raths and hills, to float like slow smoke over the ruins of forts and lodges and grass hay fields to sweeten the very sky. My bardic ancestors bequeathed me little in that way.

I can play Yellow Submarine on a ukulele, along with a handful of blues riffs– and much to the horror of my immediate family I am willing to do so, if given occasion or excuse, in public. Although I’ve failed to master Chuck Berry’s harmonized slide technique on any other instrument, it sounds great on the ukulele.

I think that I’m the only one of my circle who failed to learn the intro of “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar when we were kids. I had a little acoustic guitar that I practiced on, but it was cheap and Oregon is humid and the neck bent so that I had to tune the stupid thing every two minutes. I cursed it then, but I am really good at tuning to this day, so at least it wasn’t a wasted effort.

My husband has purchased a guitar for me and I’m eagerly awaiting it’s arrival. I believe the Fed-Ex guy is a little scared of me, as I run out when the truck pulls up and ask “Is it here? It’s about this long and it’s from Massachusetts. Are you sure? Have you even looked in your truck?!”

A little obsessive? Me? Noo. Not me.

My very own Fender. On it’s way. To me.

My very own black Fender. Stratocaster.

My very own black Fender with a Hello Kitty pick guard.

In the words of the immortal Eric Cartman: “Super sweet”

I brought the Traveler out and cozied myself up next to the fire to spin some BFL and Josey asked if he could use the Traddy.

Does a bear live in the woods?

He armed himself with some wool, I set the drive band and tension for him, put a drop of oil on the flyer to keep it from squeaking and tried to keep myself from giggling with maternal delight. I’m not one of those moms that makes her children learn to do everything she does, but when one of my offspring chooses to do something that I like– it’s pretty cool.

I did try to convince him to sit in one of the lower profile chairs but Josey seems to think being on the couch gives him more leverage when treadling.

This has spawned some really interesting discussions with some other home school families over the past few days. First, yes– my kids do have access to most of craft supplies, not just the scraps. And for the most part, they get to use the grownup tools (with the exception of grownup tools that can cause significant amounts of bleeding, blindness, or disfigurement.) And yes, sometimes I cringe a little when they pick the more expensive stuff– but I behave myself.

My major peeve (or at least one of them) is when people expect their children to learn to be Monets or DaVincis and then give the little people left overs and crap art supplies. That makes no sense at all– during the learning process, that’s when one needs the good stuff that works right–not brushes that shed goat hair and partially felted short ends that would frustrate an expert.

The other issue, that of spinning being “womans work” I think Josey answered rather well. He pointed out that historically there have been pirates and sailors that spun and/or made rope, as well as repaired netting and knitting between stints of pillaging and pirating– depending on their needs. There’s really nothing more manly than a pirate is there?

If that argument wasn’t enough to stand on it’s own; he pointed out that there are more girl knitters than girl gamers.

He’s ten going on eleven so while the boy isn’t that interested in girls yet, he’s very aware that his older friends find them fascinating. Well played, son, well played.