Patriot Goose

The very first thing I did when I booted up my new laptop was to download and install Firefox. I never want to be one of those nerd evangelists who shuns others based on software preferences, but those 45 seconds that I had to use Internet Explorer? Were painful. To celebrate my nerdy browser love, here are my favourite add-ons . (But the 50% of you or so, judging by my stats, can feel free to tune this all out. Except for whoever is it that’s using IE5: really, it’s time to let it go…)

Web Developer
A+ #1 Winner. Take away everything else, but leave me my Web Developer extension. This thing has saved my bacon many a time. I make most use of the CSS functions — especially for outing nested page structure — but it’s chock full of other handy tools for validating and troubleshooting your site.

AdBlock Plus
Kind of an obvious choice (unless you’re the other half of my household *cough*). I do turn it off on sites that I frequent and want to support, unless your ads are just too dang obnoxious.

PDF Download
I hate when you’re happily browsing along, when suddenly, that link you click on turns out to be a PDF instead of a page. That’s not a nice trick to spring on people. This one’s especially nice for all of you Ravelers out there saving off those PDF patterns.

Dowload Statusbar
Pop-up windows drive me nuts, and the default download manager for Firefox is no exception. Download Statusbar keeps everything nice and neat for me.

Gmail Manager
I’m one of those compulsive people with too many e-mail addresses. Gmail Manager lets me switch between my work, personal, and 8 million other accounts.

Bonus Frivolous Choice: LastFM/Scrobble Pandora
I love the tracking, organizational, and other features of last.fm, but Pandora just gets me and my musical tastes much better. But now I can listen to Pandora and scrobble it to last.fm, combining it in one awesome, possibly unholy union.

I’d love to hear what your favourite add-ons are.

Working all an nighter, getting four hours of sleep, and drinking a giant coffee so you can do it all over again? That’s a bad idea. (Still waiting for those pupils to stop dilating…)

Trying to fix a broken digital camera? That’s a bad idea. (Those things hold quite a charge…)

Trying to knit a whole sweater in a month while blogging everyday and doing a computer-based job, all after just recovering from nerve damage in your arm? That’s a really bad idea. Ouch.

Is it just me, or is the Christmas Creep starting in especially early this year? I haven’t seen any kind of Thanksgiving advertising, but there’s suddenly Christmas stuff everywhere. I was at Target on Saturday, contemplating if it was too early to buy an extra pie plate for Thanksgiving, when, blammo! I ran smack dab into the Christmas aisle, quite literally; those fake tree needles really sting, by the way. My city put up its wreaths and lights last weekend, and I’m seeing ads for TV holiday specials and Santa visits at the mall, and hearing carols start to creep into regular rotation everywhere.

What happened to Thanksgiving? Does is get shoved into the corner because it’s not a present-centric holiday, and therefore holds no significance for retailers? I felt bad enough not being prepared for Thanksgiving yet (omg, what the hell am I cooking this year?!), but now on top of that, I’m suddenly starting to freak out about how many knitting days are left until Christmas. Not to mention the extensive food-related planning that needs to go on there… Poor Thanksgiving: you’re not even here yet, and you’ve already been replaced in my thoughts. Maybe we need to start shoving gifts into the turkey carcass, to ratchet up the appeal a few notches.

All that being said, I did get my present already (the new laptop I’ve been saving my pennies for, nerd-squee!), so I’m heartily supporting the creeping holiday season. Bring on the jingling cheer*!

*this sounds like that virus you are inevitably “gifted” with at the family Christmas gathering

The meme where you list six book-related things about yourself. Stolen shamelessly from many.

1. I am not a book snob. I’ll read just about anything. Classics, biographies, pulpy purple fiction, literature, romance, non-fiction. I grew up with just access to a small rural library, so I couldn’t afford to be picky.
2. I’m a fast reader, and I hate it. It’s rare that it takes me more then a day to read any book. It’s great for textbooks, but awful for fiction, especially when you get attached to the characters; I try to compensate by reading books in a series.
3. I’d rather go to the library then the bookstore. Why buy what you can get for free? I also just love the atmosphere of a library; the quiet, the smell of old books. My city has a fantastic library, and I go at least once a week.
4. Once I start a book, I almost always finish it. (Fiction only, in this case.) There are maybe a half-dozen books I haven’t been able to slog through. No matter how horrible the book is, I must see it through to the end. Even if it means that I want to throw the book across the room when I’m done. Which I wouldn’t actually do, because…
5. I hate to damage a book. Some of you will remember this old debate. My husband thinks a well-loved book should look like it’s well loved, with creased corners and cracked spines. I can’t bear to so much as turn down a single page. I don’t know why, though. The only exception to this is cookbooks. Speaking of which…
6. I love cookbooks best of all. Especially ones that are old, worn, and the apparently well-used. I like to read cookbooks like some people read novels. There are fewer gifts that I like more then a beat-up old cookbook from the used book store.

I’ll skip the tagging, but feel free to tag yourself.

All week long I’ve been slogging through the rest of the garter yoke of my February Lady Sweater, dying to get to the lace. Finally, last night, I got to that point, and I woke eager to start the first pattern repeat. Imagine my horror, then, when I reached knitting bag, and found it damp and bearing that horrible odour that is all too familiar to cat owners everywhere. I’m certain my screaming and swearing could be heard in the next county. I also had a moment of frustration, where I stared at the cat and yelled “why would you do that?!”, until I realized that the answer is “because I’m an animal, you idiot”. Fortunately for the culprit, the intense cute is an antidote to the anger.

After scouring the internet for solutions, I’ve been alternating soaking the sweater in vinegar and rinsing in cool water. Fortunately, the sweater doesn’t seem to have taken direct hit, but the ball of yarn and my knitting bag are probably a total loss. I’m torn between wanting to throw the whole thing in the trash in disgust and frustration, and my stubbornness to finish and the desire to not be wasteful. We’ll see what happens after another round of cleaning, and a good drying, but I am seriously dejected. I’m also not knowledgeable enough to know if it’s even possible to essential block a half finished piece, and then continue knitting, so if anyone can tell me, please do so.

Part of our pastoral dream for the future includes a spinner’s flock peacefully grazing in our green meadow. Which is all well and good until you consider that I don’t actually know how to spin.

Today I took the first baby steps to correct that, however, by taking a drop spindle class at my favourite yarn store. I’m going to consider the endevour a great success; I broke the yarn and dropped the spindle a few times, and I didn’t quite master the coordinated motions, but neither did I injure myself or others (always cause for celebration), and I even made a tiny bit of yarn in the process. It’s somehow both overspun and underspun and the same time, but I made it. (That’s actually a picture of my second attempt, since I lost the first between here and the store. Not a great loss to the world of yarn, believe me.)

I didn’t sleep well last night. Did you ever have one of those horribly, exhausting dreams? The kind where it’s so vivid you wake up like you were really doing all the things you dreamed about? Last night, I was dreaming that I was being chased by a giant elephant. The elephant was trying to vacuum me up with his trunk, and no matter how fast I ran, I kept getting pulled further and further backwards. The hideous sucking noise was getting louder and louder, as I was pulled in closer and closer. I was mere inches away from being gobbled up, and the sound was deafening and so real and close…

…then I sat bolt upright in bed and realized that the Giant Suckinator was sitting right outside my window, sucking up the leaves Mike had raked into the street the day before. And I realized that this must be exactly how cats feel when you use the vacuum cleaner.

I deeply envy those bloggers who manage to write week after week of engaging, funny, touching posts, and make it look so effortless at the same time. I’m admittedly not even a mediocre blogger — my area of excellence is more the underlying technology then the meaty content — but, still, I don’t remember NaBloPoMo being such a chore last year. I feel like I’m scraping the bottom for inspiration, and the month isn’t even half over yet. Memes, cat pictures, and a catalog of personal neuroses can only take one so far, after all. (My husband did offer to help out and write a guest post, but I’m not sure if you’re ready for 10,000 words on the subject of “Why Mike is so Awesome”.)

Mostly, I think I’m lacking in perspective; it tends to happen when you listen to your own voice for too long. So I’m going to put the ball in your court: what do you want to read in this space? The floors is open to questions and topic suggestions. More crafts, some sort of nerd mumbo-jumbo, more wacky klutz hijinks? (If you’re the owner of the IP address that’s been plumbing the dark and embarrassing depths of my archives all week, I’d really like to hear from you in particular.) Or are you really digging the cats and the crazy? It’s your call. And if you’re struggling with NaBloPoMo too, like I know some of you are, can I come and ask questions on your site too?