Author Archive: meri

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve started making random babblings from a whole new digital place. I finally decided to go ahead and set up my own blog again, after a several year hiatus. Part of this was at the urging (perhaps gentle pestering) of some of my friends, part of this was because I’m starting to re-emerge into a world that I’ve been hiding from for the aforementioned several years. Whatever the ultimate reason, the result is the same: I have a new home on the interweb.

But now, the confusion starts. I have to figure out how to balance the various places I’m supposed to be with the various blatherings of mine, without requiring people to go to too many places to make sure they don’t miss any of the very important things I say while also ensuring that nobody is forced to read my genius more than once. I suspect that this will eventually boil down to this something along these lines:

• covert-ops.org: My new domain. Almost everything will be posted here, except for the most silly blather, which will go directly on Facebook. However, most everything that gets posted here will also be posted (as a link, or as the full text) to Facebook. (This feels like the explanations about how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square.) I wish there was an auto-post-my-full-article-damnit-to-Facebook plugin, but I haven’t found it yet. Instead, links to the original blog post are posted to Facebook. I understand that most of you won’t follow these links. But hey, maybe you’ll subscribe to me using your favorite RSS reader or something.

• Facebook: Currently the home of the vast majority of my online presence. I will continue to post little blather directly to Facebook. As mentioned, links or full text from covert-ops.org will also end up here.

• LiveJournal: Remember LiveJournal? I still have a LiveJournal account, and have even posted to it in the last year. Kind of. Mostly asking if the thing was still on, but still, it was a post. I will continue to have my LJ account, and will be working to figure out auto-posting from WordPress (covert-ops.org) to LJ. I will also use my LiveJournal account for things I feel a need to write about, but in a less public fashion than any of my other venues offer. If you want to follow me there, I’m broken_gizmo, and my posts are friends only. (See what I mean about the less public thing?) Extremely low traffic.

Other places where I have accounts but mostly for me to follow people (as opposed to providing any actual content) include places like Google+, Twitter, and tumblr. I’m trying to keep a link roundup on earthshatteringkaboom of all the places where you can stalk me to your heart’s content. I’m helpful like that.

If anyone has any tips about how they manage their various online presences without going mad, I’m open to suggestions. In the meantime, I hope to pull this off without annoying too many people. 🙂

Aloha!

More babbling about the SSMS™ follows. Continue at your own risk.

For those who don’t remember, the way this works, the subscribers to the pattern get updates once a week. With each update, we get a few additional rows, and we get to grow our fabric and it’s all spiffy and neat. We have thus far received three of the five parts. Right.

I’m knitting not one but two of these things. One will go to Jenn when it’s done, and the other one does not yet have a recipient lined up. I’ve restarted one of them at least twice. I’ve completely tossed one out, due to irreconcilable  differences between me and the yarn. All in all, I’m well entrenched in working with this pattern, and am committed to the cause. I’m somewhat addicted to this pattern at this point. I want to keep knitting it. You’d think that, what with having two of these underway, I’d be good, right?

Hah. Foolish mortal. I’m currently caught up on both of these shawls. I have no other knitting projects underway. I do not get a new pattern piece until Tuesday morning. What on earth am I going to do for the next 32 hours? I’m going to consider it a success if I don’t manage to cast on a third instance of this shawl.

I’m currently reading three different series: one in electronic form (Harry Potter), one in audiobook form (Sookie Stackhouse), and one in print (Discworld). Gods above, my brain hurts when I confuse the plotlines.

Good Saturday morning to you all. Please treat yourselves well today. In many parts of the country, this means paying particular attention not only to the temperature but the heat index today. Stay cool, stay hydrated. Me, I think I’m going to spend part of the day in a movie theater with G. (Not hiding from the heat or anything, just want to go see a movie.)

Aloha!

Many many thanks for all the birthday greetings. You all are great. 🙂

I had a wonderful day. As many of you know, I generally spend my birthday hiding inside. This isn’t because I have any particular fear of my birthday. Rather, it’s because of a particular fear of my birthday when combined with my geographic location. It seems like half the eastern seaboard descends upon the DC area for the 4th of July. Tourists on the Beltway, jammed Metro cars, lost people, crazed shoppers. All sorts of things that I like to avoid, so I’ve made it a habit to spend my birthday indoors. But this year, I decided to buck the trend, and ventured out into the world not once, but twice!

I went to a trunk show at The Yarn Spot. There were many many fabulous yarns to look at and pet. The store was packed, which was great to see. Granted, some of the folks may have been lingering a little longer than they might have, as the store had air conditioning and many of the patrons were still lacking in power. However, Victoria (our hostess) welcomed everyone to stay for as long as they liked, for whatever reason. I even won one of the door prize raffles: some lovely pink sock yarn, with Outlast Technology™ (which is supposed to prevent your feet from getting overly warm or cold).

I went home and started winding some of my new yarn (more on this later), and met up with G. After some discussion, we decided to head out to lunch, and to see the new Spiderman movie. (Definitely worth seeing. Garfield is a very different Spiderman from Maguire, and I think I like the new guy’s take on the role better. Also, the things (non-mistakes, at least) meri noticed while watching the movie: Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy) carries a Levenger Circa notebook and there’s a copy of Seabiscuit on Gwen’s bookshelf.

Then we came home, and there was knitting. (Of *course* there was knitting.) I decided that I wasn’t a huge fan of one of the yarns that I’m using to knit up SSMS, and happened to get a great deal on a fabulous replacement at the trunk show. I cast on with the new yarn and got a few rows in before G and I decided to call it a night.

All in all, a pretty good day. I had a lot more fun than would have happened if I’d stayed inside. I made it through the day with minimal physical pain. I didn’t suffer at the hands of crazed people in any great way. Though, I still think those of you who head down to the Mall every year on the 4th (you know who you are!) are completely nuts. 🙂

Thanks again!

The new installment of the SSMS™ is here! Happy knitting to commence.

After a brief appointment this morning, I met up with Jenn back at the house. Then, joined by G, we went out to a very tasty lunch at a little Chinese / Japanese restaurant. We deposited G back at home, and went to have our toes painted, which was amusing all on its own. The bulk of the day was spent with knitting and “Burn Notice,” topped off by some yummy nachos for dinner. Many thanks to Jenn for all the awesome!

Having a girly afternoon with Jenn.

Heh. I’m watching the LA Galaxy vs the San Jose Earthquakes game from last night. When G left to go get gas, it was 1-0 SJ. When he got back 20 minutes later, it was 3-2 LA. One of LA’s goals was scored by SJ, even. Add in 7 minutes of extra time in the first period, and this is turning into a strange game.