General geekery (and scary facial developments)

[susie_flo]

First of all...  aarrggghh!!!  Please can someone recommend an anti-wrinkle treatment for around the eyes that actually works?  Please?  I seem to have woken up 20 years older than when I went to bed.
 
And double-arrggghh!  How can it be that I have the worst spot ever on the same day as a dire need for anti-wrinkle cream?  What kind of warped, evil deity would think that this is a reasonable thing to happen to people in their 30s?
 
Oh well, I shall distract myself by moving onto matters of general geekery...
  

Starting with something for knitting geeks and/or elephant fans...
 
I am pleased to announce that Elijah #2 is *finally* finished and all ready to be packaged up for ms_siobhan's mum.  He's virtually indistinguishable from Elijah #1 (except he has a slightly longer trunk and had to have various body parts ripped out and re-knitted from scratch, due to me not paying proper attention!)

 

Edit:  Ravelry link here: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/flockhartsl/elijah-2

 

Secondly, for yarn geeks (this is even more nerdy than knitting)...
 
Yesterday I mentioned that I had a new nostepinne... but no idea how to use it. Well thanks to the lovely interweb and the power of youtube, I have worked it out.  

I should start by saying that a nostepinne is nothing more than a tapered stick with grooves in it, which is used to hand-wind centre-pull balls of yarn from skeins.  Normally, my hand-wound balls of yarn turn out like perfect, solid spheres, where the yarn is used from around the outside.  A nostepinne, theoretically, gives you balls that are shaped a bit more like 'cakes' where the yarn is pulled out from the hollow centre...
  
Anyway I am trialling it out on 600-odd yards of divine laceweight kid silk.  The colour is called 'Ripe Cherries' and makes me drool.  It will hopefully one day become a lacy stole of some form.  
 
The skein was sold to me like this...



 
Skeins need to be wound into balls before you can knit with them, so I am using my lovely spinny swift to hold the skein while I wind...




And this is how far I have got so far with the winding (it's a nice job to do while watching tV)...

 
You have to start by building up a basic foundation pile of yarn at 90 degrees to the swift, and then you switch to winding at a 45 degree angle, turning the nostepinne every few seconds, which causes something clever to happen all by itself and creates a 'proper' ball.  This youtube vid explains all...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xuc11P4Wi4
 
Of course there are electronic ball winders that will to do this task for you... but I have discovered that I really enjoy the mundane task of yarn winding - it is such a a stress reliever and the the different tactile sensations that you get from tweed Vs silk Vs cashmere is all part of the pleasure...   'tis nice.

 
Finally, something for traditional geeks...
 
I want to make a comment about the Star Trek movie...  
 

Here's the thing... I liked the film, but there is something about the motivation of a major character that bothered me.  (DO NOT READ ON UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN IT ALREADY...)  
 
Imagine you are a Romulan who has just witnessed your planet being destroyed by an exploding star, because Spock (who was trying to prevent the catastrophe) was about 20 seconds too late to absorb the star in a black hole.  So then the next thing that happens to you is that you get absorbed into the same black hole which transports you 120-odd years into the past.  
 
Now surely your first thought, upon finding yourself in the past, would not be "Grrrr!! I will get my revenge on Spock and all of the alliance planets for failing to destroy that star on time"  but   "Omg, flipping heck, I'm in the past... which means this future catastrophe has not actually happened yet and I have a rare opportunity to prevent it from occurring by applying my advanced future knowledge".   
 
I mean, these Romulans are flying around in a super-futuristic space ship and surrounded by people who understand about black holes and time travel, so it's not as if nobody would believe they were from the future.  They could have found the younger Spock, told him everything, and set in motion a plan to get the planet evacuated and/or destroy the star (by the bizarre power of "red") long before it was due to explode...  
 
Dontcha reckon?

 

 

Comments

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Heh... thank you. The risk of blogging him is that he does tend to get this reaction :-)

Much as I love him, I am all Elijahed out for a while now... plus I have a queue of other projects awaiting my attention. But maybe in a year or two I will feel like making him again... (in the meantime if you know another knitter who might like to make him for you, point them my way!)

[steer.livejournal.com]

I do love that elephant -- not reading too much though since I might go see star trek.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Yes, def avoid the last couple of paragraphs... and go see it! (After you've watched it I would be interested in your opinion.)

Hope you feel better soon...

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

He is uttertly adorable - thank you so much!!!!! he is going to make her smile so much....and the little fellahs too :-)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

You're welcome :-)

(drop me an email if you'd like me to include any particular message from you)

[r0ck3tsci3ntist.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness! Little Blue Elephant is delightful! And that beautiful, red yarn is beautiful!

I'm planing on checking out the new Trek film today, or maybe sometime this week. Your point about the main baddy's motivation is noted but what got me in the first place is a populated planet being destroyed by a star's explosion because stars swell before they explode anyway so the planet would have already been deserted. And YOU felt geeky...

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hee, yes you have indeed out-geeked me! :-)

Re: the red yarn... I am totally in love with it. Currently dithering about a pattern, but maybe this Swallowtail Shawl: http://www.evelynclarkdesigns.com/pdf/Swallowtail.pdf

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Lovely pattern. It would be nice to have it in an item which is worn spread out so you can see the pattern.