Enhanced Computing & Spinning

A few weeks ago, I actually did upgrade my RAM, so this strikes my funny bone especially well. I went from 256MB to 768MB and I'm very happy with the result. I ran across the sale-priced half-gig stick of DDR at the office supply store for just under $30 and I'm very happy with the result.

BTW, lolcats aren't always cats!

In fiber news, I'm about half done knitting a hat out of the sheep/goat/alpaca/dog/cat/human yarn. I was showing the yarn to my Scrabble buddy at the coffee shop the other night and a couple of people overheard and came over to talk about spinning! Fiber lovers are everywhere.

The gal who sold me my wheel included a 2.8 oz batt of wool/mohair she'd drum-carded. I've spun half on the first spool and started the second. It has a lot of neps, but I'm pretending they aren't there. The single I'm spinning is showing some improvement. I also practiced pulling a roving out of the batt with a button/diz; there was less fiber stuck to me and the roving is more consistent in size than the torn strips.


Here you can see the dized roving and the first spool of singles. They're over twisted in places (see the cork screws? LOL). The purple bit is an experiment at the end ; I carded some tapestry yarn and tried spinning it. I won't leave it there, I promise!

Simultaneous Knitting and Scrolling

Late last night I was playing with a friend's camera and took this picture of my frogged Horcrux sock sitting in a heap of recent fibery goodness.


I got it past the heel twice but didn't like it (not the pattern's fault!), so ribit ribit. At least now it will be started during the Summer of Socks. The other night I swatched for Mystery Stole 3 on size 5 US needles in both the green and the blue. I'm teetering between size 4 and 5 and the green yarn. We'll see what happens with clue 1 comes out Friday.

This camera is 12 or so years newer than mine and actually took pictures of the Black Hole Under My Desk without the flash. A Very Good Thing because the dust bunnies don't show up! Here's its frequent resident, Mr. Kitty, looking sweet and keeping my toes company on a big pillow.


Over to the right is this:


A serial trackball with BIG buttons that I got at Goodwill for $1.99 recently. The ball is on the shelf since I discovered that it's hard to control it with sock-covered toes. HOWEVER, it is extremely useful for scrolling down while reading blogs! I park the cursor over the down-arrow in the scroll bar, pick up my knitting, and read and scroll away! My system seems not to mind at all having two pointing devices operating at the same time. Definitely a simple, thrifty, reuse idea that increases knitting time. The only downside is now there's another cable snaking around. Just wait till I give up my socks and get practiced surfing with my toes!

Inventing Words

Dislexicon: The English Language Extender

Here's a password or blog name generator. Well, you could use it that way. Just feed it a root word or word fragment, and it will generate some almost real words with definitions. Who knows? Maybe some words are actually real. For best password security, add a number somewhere. Here's what happened when I entered "knit":

1:	neoknit	neo-knit	new knit
2:	knitphyll	knit-phyll	leaf knit
3:	intraknit	intra-knit	within knit
4:	locusknitability	locus-knit-ability	inclination or suitability for place knit
5:	underknit	under-knit	beneath or below knit
6:	knitferous	knit-ferous	producing or containing knit
7:	knitcyte	knit-cyte	cell knit
8:	knitize	knit-ize	to cause to be or to become knit
9:	knitess	knit-ess	a female knit
10:	knitcide	knit-cide	to cut down or kill knit
11:	oculoknit	oculo-knit	eye knit
12:	ornithoknit	ornitho-knit	bird knit
13:	knitphobia	knit-phobia	fear of knit
14:	osteoknit	osteo-knit	bone knit
15:	multiknit	multi-knit	many knit
16:	spirareknitite	spirare-knit-ite	native, resident or part of breathe knit
17:	chromaknit	chroma-knit	color knit
18:	gastroknit	gastro-knit	stomach of knit
19:	cytoknit	cyto-knit	cell knit
20:	pneumoknitably	pneumo-knit-ably	performing in a manor worth of air knit
21:	corporknitive	corpor-knit-ive	performing or tending toward body knit
22:	knitambulate	knit-ambulate	to walk or wander knit
23:	ooknit	oo-knit	egg knit
24:	disknit	dis-knit	not knit
25:	photoknitling	photo-knit-ling	one connected with light knit