Alternative madness this March

To say I'm not a sports fan is an understatement, so March Madness holds no particular magic for me. But I'm thoroughly enjoying some of the alternate brackets happening around the web right now.

First, we have DA BWAHA, a bracket match between some of the most popular recent romance novels from varying subgenres, including contemporary, historical and young adult. Original brackets have already been filled out and submitted, but the second chance bracket happens tomorrow. And you can always cast your vote!

Next is another literary cage match -- this one to the death. Dum dum dummmmmmm. Suvudu is pitting well-known sci fi/fantasy characters against each other in a death match. My man Harry Dresden went down in the first round to Conan the Barbarian, but my other man Jaime Lannister is still a-fightin'.

Finally, cake vs. pie. And what kind of cake? What's your pie preference? Voting has never been more delicious.

I thought the yarn would be safe in the closet. I see now that I was wrong. Well played, cats.

Goodies from Tennessee

As part of Dish Rag Tag, my team's leader, Toni, set up a side competition in which she gave away the most cunning little homemade bag ever. And I won! Check out the coolness:

• An adorable bag with the most clever hand-made tassels. I love the fabric, which shows all the states. Very retro chic!
• Tapestry needles for weaving in those pesky yarn tails. I'm always dropping and losing these needles, so this is terrific.
  
• A knitting gauge. How did Toni know I always need help figuring out my gauge?
  
• Two stitch holders, which I don't have among my knitting materials, so I'm especially glad to see these!
• Delicious tea in some of my favorite flavors. (Mmmmmmm, pomegranate.)

Here's an inside look at the cunning little bag:






I'm delighted by the bounty and am very grateful to Toni for her thoughtfulness, and for making DRT 2009 so much fun!

Death hats

Last Thursday at midnight, Hat Wars began.

My task was to knit a hat and send it to my target to "kill" her. At the same time, my assassin was knitting a hat to "kill" me with. It's a vicious, vicious cycle of hats, knitting needles and death.

The patterns actually went live at 11 p.m. Thursday my time, and I was absolutely committed to getting that hat in the mail on Friday. I scanned the patterns and picked the one that looked challenging but not impossible, with a cable pattern to keep me on my toes. I cast on that night and knit the ribbed (resisting a "for her pleasure" joke ... resisting ... resisting ... oh, I guess I already made it, didn't it?) brim for as long as I could stay awake.

I woke up groggy the next morning and kept knitting. And knitting. And knitting. At about 2 p.m., it stopped being fun and turned into a chore. I had a house to clean. I had papers to grade, PowerPoints to create, lessons to plan. I had cats to pet! But no. I ignored the stack of dishes in the sink and the pile of work on the table. I removed the cats from my lap as they each jumped up to see what had me so engrossed. I was. Going. To get. This. Done.

And I did! With 20 minutes before the post office closed, I raced out of the house to mail a gorgeous, forest green hat to my target. Actually finishing it and putting it in them mail perked up my mood considerably.

And I killed my target, whose hat arrived on Monday. Of course, my death hat arrived on Tuesday. So my target's dead, I'm dead, and my assassin is dead, too, killed by yet another assassin knitter.

Never, ever cross a knitter.

Dish rag has been tagged

Last week was a busy, busy week of knitting. First up was Wednesday, when the Dish Rag Tag Chronicles of Yarnia box arrived with my mail at about 9 a.m. I happened to be walking by my front windows, and I saw my mail carrier slide that friendly white box into my the mail box. I zipped out to get it, and ripped into it (not literally) to see what I could see.

In it was a great-looking aqua dish cloth courtesy of Alaina, along with stitch markers and a cute little Post It note pad. Fun stuff! I also found the cheery yellow yarn I was going to use to make my own dish cloth to send on to Pam.

And four hours later , minus an hour to take my cat Thor (not pictured; that one is Gygax) to the vet, I finished and dashed to the post office to send it on the next leg of its journey.

Let's hear it for a one-day turn-around!

Mmmmmmmmmm

When you tell your server at Jonah's Seafood House that you're celebrating a birthday, and she responds by saying she'll bring out a complimentary piece of chocolate cake, she is not messing around.

Seriously, this picture downplays the massive-osity of this slice of cake.

"Yum" is an understatement.

Tag!

I knit.

I just want to get that out there. I started on a whim after seeing how much my sister enjoyed crocheting. And she picked up this hobby on a whim after my husband and I bought her a "Learn to Crochet" DVD that we found in a clearance aisle. It was supposed to be a joke, but she loved it. Anyway. It looked like such fun that I took a knitting class. I'm not great, but I'm OK, and I really enjoy it.

Not long ago, I joined Ravelry, which has amazing forums that have ironically consumed the free time that I used to use to knit. However, the website alerted me to the delightful knitting competition Dish Rag Tag. Nine other knitters and I are on a team competing against others in a relay race across the country to knit a dish rag and send the dish rag along with a fresh skein of yarn to the next participant.

I believe I'm about two people away from receiving the baton -- er, box -- in the mail and completing my leg.

Making knitting competitive? Brilliant!

Our group is named Chronicles of Yarnia. We are in it to win it. Fear us.

Shut your cake hole, sexist vitamins!

Thank you, One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins. You advertise the benefits of healthy muscles for him and healthy skin for her. Because men are strong, and women are pretty. Can you imagine what would happen if a teenage boy had healthy skin? Or -- Get this! Ha! -- if a teen girl had muscles? What a crazy world that would be! Thanks, One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins, for keeping the world safe for stereotypical gender norms!

Oh, One a Day Teen Advantage vitamins, how I loathe thee!

It's like the Sahara

Ugh. I've already failed on one resolution. My plants would be better off if I left them in the desert, I swear. This includes my husband's family's heirloom Christmas cactus from the Mother Country. Why they entrusted it to us, I'll never know. I keep hoping some long-lost last will and testament will be discovered and we'll learn that the cactus was supposed to go to Great Aunt Tilly with her green thumb and sunny verandas, not the Planticide household. Until then, it stays with us, since we were the ones who unofficially inherited it and we can't find any other family members who want to take on the responsibility. Believe me. We've tried.

Mid-year resolution

Be it so resolved: I'm going to update this baby a little more regularly. And since I didn't make this resolution in January, I'm calling it my mid-year resolution. Maybe this could become a regular thing. What else should I resolve to do? And do resolutions stick better in the hot summer months, with a relaxed schedule but the distractions of outdoor activities? Or do they work better in bitterly cold January, when all you want to do is stay inside in thick socks and a warm sweater?

So just for fun, I also resolve to water my plants before they start to droop and I can actually hear them croaking "waaaaaaater." And I resolve to add more classic literature to my To Be Read pile. I'm looking at you, 100 Years of Solitude. Oh, and I resolve to enjoy gossiping less. Notice, I'm not resolving TO gossip less. Just to tamp down my enjoyment of it. There's a difference.

Looking for a Christmas gift for the romance reader in your life? Here's a suggestion.

Success!

I passed! I got approval from the requesite committee members, I've made the requested changes, and I'm officially Dr. SaraBear. All that remains is to give that big ol' document a final proofread and send it off to the university's grad school for a format check. It's such a relief to have this burden off of my shoulders. I've been living with this goal for so long. Gotta finish the dissertation. I'll do that after I finish the dissertation. Not until I finish the dissertation.

Now I'm left to wonder ... what happens next?

D-day

It all comes down to this.

On Monday, I'm defending my dissertation.

I have no idea what to expect. Major changes? Tough questions? Wholescale rewrites? Prolonged, derisive laughter? Tears, either on my part or on the faces of my committee members?

I really don't know. But whatever you're doing on Monday afternoon, please take a moment and pray for Mojo.*





*I am not, in fact, known as Mojo. I am referencing a Simpsons episode. Feel free to laugh.

Burning love

I am a successful DVD burner. Bow before me.

No, really, it's a big accomplishment for someone whose forte isn't electronics. I had no luck with the Cheetah program, but I didn't tinker with it for very long because the very nice technical support guy at Sonic got My DVD up and running. What worked for me might work for you, so I'll put it here.

First, uninstall RealPlayer or RealOnePlayer (or OneRealPlayer or the OneRingRealPlayer or the PrecioussssssPlayer) or whatever variation of "real," "player," and possibly "one" you might have on your computer.

Second, turn off all the programs that automatically launch at the computer's start-up. Yes, it disables your virus sweeper and various other components. You can turn them back on when you're done burning; just don't forget to turn them off before your next burning session.

Those two steps worked for me, and I'm burning like a champ now.

Aren't you proud that I got through without a "burn, baby, burn" joke? Oh, does that count as one? Drat.

Help for the hopeless

So I'm a TiVo gal. Don't have one? Go get one, ASAP. No, really. I'll wait.


So now that you've got one, you'll probably want to save some of your favorite shows forever and ever, my precioussss. TiVo lets you do that with TiVoToGo, where you can send programs to your computer and then burn them onto DVD. Sounds pretty sweet, right? The problem is that the officially recommended software, MyDVD, doesn't, um, work. It's a huge hair-pulling, gut-clenching pain in my non-techno-savvy neck.

A possible solution came to me today from a very nice man at TiVo support, who told me off-the-record and very hush-hush that I should by no means use MyDVD. Instead, he recommended I use Cheetah to burn my DVDs once I get my shows onto my computer.

My optimistic heart beats a little faster. Let's hear it for Cheetah and its magical (I hope!) ability to solve my burning problem! If you've had this same problem, check them out for yourself: www.cheetahburner.com

Here's hoping I saved you the half-hour you might have had to spend with TiVo support.

Is this thing on?

This is my inagural foray into the world of blogging. I have no goal in mind for this corner of the web right now. We shall see what unfolds.

The title of my little venture comes from, of all places, an ad I once wrote for a garage sale we hosted. At a loss to describe the shards of our lives we were putting out for sale, I simply ended the ad with "and intriguing miscellany." I figured it would spark a few people's curiousity. And sure enough, two twenty-something women told me they made a point to come to ours because, "Look! Intriguing miscellany! How can we skip that?"

Do I remember what they bought? Alas, no. But I hope they remain intrigued by it to this day.