« December 2004 | Main | February 2005 »
January 26, 2005
I'm here!
Whew! Just as I was about to give up on the F train, one finally came. (I would have taken the B16 bus to the Q or B train, which would have added *another* half hour, at least!)
Then, once the train was actually moving, we ended up stopped for ages at Smith/9th Street -- a guy on the last car freaked out in some way, and ended up being dragged off the train by *five* cops. There was a complete breakdown of the social order -- passengers in my car were all chatting with each other like we were at a cocktail party, and people were traipsing in and out of the car onto the platform to try to see what was going on.
Eventually the train was functioning again qua train, and after only an hour and a half I made it from Fort Hamilton Parkway to Jay Street on the F train. Yay!
Posted by Rose at 01:57 PM
Rose on the MTA
Hey everyone -- Rose asked me to let you know that she is stuck in train purgatory (no F train due to a police investigation or something) and is valiantly trying to make her way to the store by alternate means. She'll probably get there in the 1:00-1:30 range.
Posted by Francis at 12:16 PM
January 23, 2005
Kate Bush news
As someone who was a moody teenager in the 1980s, and who thus spent hours listening to Kate Bush albums, I'm delighted at a spate of news regarding the lovely recluse. Most of this comes from the non-official Kate Bush News and Information site, which is very much the place to go to see what's up.
New album! Seems like it's definitely coming out in 2005, though a date hasn't been set yet. I wasn't such a Red Shoes fan when that came out, though maybe I should give it another listen. I am ready to lurve the new CD, so let's all keep our fingers crossed that it's top-10 list material.
A somewhat odd-sounding combination novel and biography has come out recently, Waiting for Kate Bush, by John Mendelssohn. A review that I read didn't convince me that I have to read it, but I'm certainly curious.
Perhaps the most instantly fun news is that the ass-kickingly awesome Brit band The Futureheads have not only recorded a cover of "Hounds of Love" -- they have also filmed a fabulous video of it! (NB: music starts playing when you go to that URL, so it's potentially startling. Video/audio stuff is found by following a link on the left. The "Meantime" video is also really swell.) Hot Hot Heat:The Cure::The Futureheads:The Jam, says Francis. And who would know better than he, a dyed-in-the-wool Paul Weller fan?
Posted by Rose at 11:37 PM | Comments (2)
Yarnivore closed due to snow!
Sunday, January 23rd, 2005 -- due to there being no F train service, and in general because of all the snow, Yarnivore is closed today. If you had a class scheduled, please e-mail shop@yarnivore.com so we can reschedule!
I'm sorry not to be at the store, and I hope all of you have plenty of yarn to keep you happy and warm at home!
[As an exercise for the reader, I leave it to you to figure out how I know there's no F train service. Hint: it involved a lot of walking in knee-deep snow and waiting.]
Posted by Rose at 12:10 PM
Comment spam!
Apologies if I deleted anyone's legitimate comment (I think I deleted at least one and possibly two ones I didn't meant to delete) but I got hammered with about 180 spam comments, and it was a little fiddly, going through and keeping good ones.
I know, I know, I really need to reinstall MT-Blacklist. Soon! With a little help from an MT-literate friend.
Posted by Rose at 01:55 AM
January 18, 2005
Is there anything I can't do?
Well, yeah, quite a lot, when you get right down to it. But right now I'm pleased to report my web debut as a singer. Yeah, that's right -- you can hear me sing if you go listen to the clever songs that Francis wrote for the Holy Tango of Literature.
These are songs that answer the question, "What if songwriters wrote songs whose titles were anagrams of their names?" Now we know: they'd be apt and funny and charming.
Posted by Rose at 01:54 PM
January 17, 2005
spicy hot chocolate
For your mid-winter chocolate imbibing pleasure, here's the recipe I came up with today for spicy hot chocolate:
1 16 ounce can Ghirardelli ground chocolate and cocoa
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground chipotle powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Mix this all together in a big bowl, and put it up in Mason jars (or try to get it all back into its original container, minus what you drink right away).
Three level tablespoons in 8 ounces of hot milk of choice (we're using 1% over here). Zowie. It's really good, and fixes all my complaints with the other spicy hot chocolates I've had (that they were simultaneously too hot but not spicy enough -- nothing but cayenne in the mix is my guess).
NB on spice amounts: all these spices are relatively fresh jarred spices from Penzey's -- if your spices are old, you might want to start with these measurements and maybe use more. Or you might just want to buy new spices, because fresh spices are yummy.
The MIT Mystery Hunt rocked, when it didn't suck, which means that mostly it rocked. Here's the link for the 2005 Hunt.
Posted by Rose at 11:51 PM | Comments (4)
January 13, 2005
On a clear day, you can see forever
On a foggy day, not so far, really.
Last time I went out to Williamsburg, I saw a big domed church in the distance from where I was (intersection of Union and Grand, looking towards Manhattan). Today I went back out, determined to have a look at that church. With all the fog, I couldn't actually see it from Union and Grand! I took a stab at figuring out where it had been, and set off walking towards the Williamsburg Bridge. On the way, I saw *adorable grafitti*.
This grafitti went all the way around the pole. Being a geek, I was *extremely impressed* -- I thought to myself, "Man, it would be hard to figure out how big to make the letters so that it would work out right, going all the way around the pole."
Sigh. I have such high expectations of my fellow humans. Here's what I saw when I walked back the other direction:
I walked under the BQE and towards Manhattan, and I busted up laughing when I realized that the "big domed church" I had seen from Union Street was actually -- are you ready? -- the HSBC in Chinatown, just across the Williamsburg Bridge.
On the bright side, there was an actual big domed church on the near side of the bridge:
But that's not what I had seen all the way from Grand Street.
On the double plus good bright side, now I know that Williamsburg and Chinatown are, like, right next door to each other! Who knew? Why do people keep these secrets from me?
Real live knitting content to follow, soon -- I've got to take pictures of the super awesome yarn that Mary and I dyed last weekend. In other knitting news, I've done both sleeves and the whole back of my Ribby Cardigan, and am halfway up the left front. W00t!
Posted by Rose at 12:44 PM | Comments (4)