Neomera Knits

In my isolation this week I have beaten .hack//infection. Yes, I know I’m several years late, what’s it to ya? Short review: too much game for the amount of story. Really interesting premise, though. I haven’t decided if I’m going to let myself slog though the next one yet, sorry Ananth. It’s still too cold in my basement to play games at length for my own damn good. Which is probably why I play World of Warcraft on my laptop in my bedroom.

Which is where the trouble started, you see.

See, there I was, wandering through the mighty underground city of the noble Dwarves, admiring the architecture and downing some fine Dwarven ale (and maybe even a bottle of IPA,) when inspiration struck. Kinda fell off the ceiling, you might say. Long story short, I’m thinking of a satchel. And learning how to create my own cable pattern. What fun! Our Resident Knitting Goddess at work showed me a fantastic website that actually has a tutorial on charting cables. What luck! Also, I think I love that vest. That by itself makes me nervous.

I also got a book called Viking Patterns for Knitting, which is full of beautiful photos of viking artifacts, and history. The patterns are pretty impressive, too. I don’t know that I’d knit them 100% as-is, but with a few minor modifications I can totally see myself wearing Frode or Vigdis. I’m going to have to give it some serious thought. Hmm… my brother needs a sweater… maybe I should see what he thinks of all that…

In other news, I’m knitting socks. LOTS of socks. I seem to be putting off baby pants in favor of socks. (Also in favor of avoiding the black Hole I’ve hit with them.) I’m rather startled at how fast I picked up the two-socks-on-two-circs method, but I have to tell you- the same thing that I find annoying about circs on regular projects, I find infuriating on socks. That thing? The plastic connector between the needles being permanantly wound up in the position they were in upon purchase. It’s maddeningthe way they spring back at you when you’re trying to sort out which tail and which needle you should be aiming for. And they have laughed at every attempt I’ve made to get them to relax. Scoffed at me, even! Any ideas out there?

So this past weekend was a mess of headaches and sobbing on my bathroom floor. There’s nothing quite so much fun as crazy stress and depression! WHEE!

I mean, um, look! Air! *runs*

Really though, I am sorry for the not updating. My life has taken a turn for the crazy, and blogging seems to be the first to fall off my to-do list. Work has been a madhouse of hangs, techs, focuses, failing cue lights, floors to be painted, and other assorted emergencies. Last week was chock full of Stuff That Needs Doing, and since the boys are at our off-site warehouse scene shop pretty much full time these days, everything falls to me. Well, at least as far as calling my boss about it. Of course, last week, we all had caught the Californian Death Cold (of Doom) and he was home sick. Ah well. I took Thursday off to combat the Death Cold and then worked all weekend on a rather entertaining dance show at the JCC in Rockville. Hooray fun and easy gigs with no stress for me!!

It was at this gig, while I was sitting at the light board, that I decided it would be fun to have a knitting travelogue. I will now show you some of the fun places my knitting went over the past few days.

While I ran lights? I knit for my friend’s baby. The genes that kid is getting, he might have to be registered as dangerously adorable.


Still knitting on Monday.

ok. yes. I need to clean up the desk. I know, I know. I’ll get there when I have a slow day. Er… ok, I’ll get to it by the summer.

I’m sure I’ll have more where that came from. Until then, hey! It’s a cover for a book! Z0MG!

Here we go everyone! A political organization I think most of us geeks can at the very least get interested in, iv not behind it. Video Game Voters is a group who is paying attention to the fact that the average age of gamers is 30 years old, and we vote.

“The Video Game Voters Network is opposed to legislation that would treat video games differently from other First Amendment protected works and would regulate the content of video games in any form or restrict access to video games.” Most of the legislation restricts sales of specially labeled games to minors. That’s all well and good, but the problem with that is that it doesn’t stop parents who don’t actually care what their kids are doing from buying those same games and just giving them to the kids in question. I’m not a mom yet, but I can say that my parents played our games with my brother and me when we were young, and helped us know the difference between real and fake. You know, like they were parenting or something.

It’s one of my pet peeves, what can I say? Attacking the media- any media (remember rock and roll is the devil’s music!) for violence and failures of parents to actually take responsibility for their children’s behaviors makes me crazy. It is irresponsible in the extreme.

Agree with them or not, the people speaking out is exactly what this country was built for. Gamers unite!

Before I started this blog- before I even thought about having one, my friend said to me one evening that I should start a blog and review books, since I like reading so much. Well, I don’t think I am qualified to be a critic- I don’t know literature but I know what I like!) and I’m relatively shy as an author (something I am attempting to work my way past with this very blog) but I just finished an excellent book, and I want to share. So here we go- Ananth, this one’s for you.

At Katsucon I bought a book from a vendor. It was what she called a yard sale transaction. One five dollar bill, no tax, no receipt, just that simple exchange, and I had a new book by an author I’d never heard of. Boy am I glad I did. The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson is really powerful book.

Don’t you hate that? “a powerful book.” What the hell does that mean, anyway? In this case it means that I finished the book and didn’t quite know what to do with myself. Every time I put the book down, for whatever reason (I was too sleepy to continue reading, lunch was over and I had to go back to pretending to work, I had to eat breakfast…) I had a hard time shaking off the world created in the book. Almost like I was haunted by it.

It’s set in ninth century Japan, mostly on the rural estate of Kaya No Yoshifuji. It seems to be basically a retelling of a fairy tale. Divided into five sections- one for each season and an epilogue of New Year- he story of a fox who falls in love with Kaya no Yoshifuji, and with the help of her grandfather and magic, becomes a human woman and steals him away from his wife. There is a great deal written about love and poetry and the meaning of life, all told as if we were reading these three character’s diaries instead of a novel.

If you prefer action to character development and a really detailed world, then you probably won’t like this book. I have to admit that even I thought it was slow until mid-autumn, and I’m usually compulsive about characters. Still, I enjoyed it, and I recommend it to others. I think I’m going to go look for more of this author’s work. I wonder, is ‘Kij’ a male name or a female name?

Well, folks. There comes a time in every project’s life where it just has to face the public and admit itself. This week is that time in the cycle of one project that is near and dear to my heart. A project that was, *ahem* suggested to me by Ananth. That project is City Limits. It’s a book that will compile the art and storytelling prowess of a number of different webcomics. It went on preorder this very week, and if you head over to look, the website has some detail on the actual project.
Here? Here I am going to tell you that I’m both excited past recognition and very nearly afraid for my life over this thing. It’s terrifying. Are you kidding me? I now get to learn all about Photoshop and In Design and layouts and fonts and all kinds of stuff. Paper. Easy, right? Do you have Any idea how many different shades of white there are? Good grief! I think my head may explode! ACK!

ok. I think I’m better now.

Ok, that’s a lie, I’m just going to distract you with a beautiful cover image (by Hawk) and hide somewhere till it’s printed.

And my neck. And right into my eyeballs at moments. I have been downed by a badass headache. Unfortunately, that is not enough to keep me from having to at least go to work in the morning for two days running. I did, however, manage to get home both yesterday and today and nap and knit a bit and rest under blankets while my mother (I love you Mom!) brought me things like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and freezing cold Cokes. More con reports are rolling off the webcomic presses, and I admit that I always find it amusing to see what other people remember and think to write about. I keep thinking that I’ll take notes so I don’t forget the great stuff that happens, but I never do. I swear. I’ll remember in May. Besides, that’ll be a few travel blog entries anyway- i get to go up to Boston early and hang out with Mookie: Supercool Dude! I warned him that I’d have to hit at least one yarn store while I’m up there and he glanced at the stack of hand crocheted (with love! By his aunt! Just for con!! How awesome is that?) scarves on his table and said “I don’t know how I can live through that sort of horror!” Perfect hair AND he’s from a Fiber Arts Family! Bonus.

Poor Hawk is listening to me whine about headaches and anime and the bloody infuriating hood on the Rogue sweater. It’s probably not the hood, really. I’m sure it’s me, being annoyed and headachey and just having a tough time, but the thing damn near kicked my butt right out of olympic contention! It took me almost as long to do just the hood as it did to do the whole body of the sweater. BUT! I have finished it and am now on Sleeve One. I got about 6ish inches done before my vision blurred again and I gave knitting up as a bad idea for the day. Speaking of bad ideas, I’m thinking that maybe staring at computer screens is probably not helping much either, so now I’m off to the Tylenol and the giant glass of water and a dark, dark room.

Well! One week to go and I spent the weekend knitting! Well… ok, so I spent the weekend at Katsucon 12 with the guys from Applegeeks. I also got to hang out with various Cool People! Aside from Hawk, Ananth and Shannon. I saw Mookie of Dominic Deegan. I was pummeled with rubber bands by Jami Noguchi of Angry Zen Master I caught Garth and Larom unawares over at Comedity. I got to harass Matt, Ian, and Jes at Mac Hall! I even got to see George, who is a General Hanger On like me! It was a wonderful con. Nice hotel (the Omni Shoreham in DC) and we got to meet some really awesome fans, as usual. And there was even an appearance Hawk’s Mac robot girl, Eve!


The decided, for some reason, to have a Photoshop panel Friday evening, when everyone was still kinda goofy from traveling. Needless to say there was much harassment of each other as Hawk had equipment issues (what can we say, it wasn’t a Mac,) and Jami started farming out the Q & A to other web artists in the audience. Afterward we managed to escape for some dinner at a thai place and the hotel bar for some Adult Drinks. Mookie and I have been trying to get out for Adult Drinks since LAST Katsucon! Saturday and Sunday were a blur of sitting at the tables selling tshirts and prints, meeting fans and even doing a bit of the fan thing ourselves. There are some very cool people out there. (Trish and Damien of Novablade Studios are definitely on the Top Ten Coolest People Ever list.)

I did manage to get some knitting done, though.

Due to a bit of a mistake reading the chart I had to rip back about an inch and a half, and due to the convention it took me most of Saturday to make it back up, so I’m only about half done with the hood. I also ran into OTHER anime knitters at the convention!


Here are Joel and Sarah with some awesome projects. There was even another one in her bag! Unfortunately, the giant window on the other side of the hallway overpowered my lame photographic skills, but there was Koigu, and soft mittens and fun talk of cable and of the fabulous Dominic Deegan scarf that was not knit, but hand croshed by Mookie’s wonderful aunt. As for the Rogue, just the rest of the hood and the sleeves left. I think I can, I think I can!

Today I admitted something to myself. I am a junkie. No, I do not take drugs (except for my sweet Benadryl- the stuff that makes life possible) but I am nonetheless a junkie. Today I found myself knitting while playing World of Warcraft. Now, for those of you who do not know what World of Warcraft is, I will explain briefly that it is what is known as an Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game. These are known to be more addictive than heroin. While I was playing this game (aka World of Warcrack) and putting my character on a flight to another part of the world, I realized that I had picked up my knitting and was actually working on a sleeve.

I was cheating on my game addiction with my knitting.

I’m not sure how I feel about this, or the revelation that this is not the first time I have done this. Thinking back, I realize that this habit is months old now. I did this with my very first sleeve, while doing cables. Is this my brain’s way of telling me that I need to improve my concentration? Is this my fingers telling me that I need to be fidgeting at all times? I have no idea. What I DO know is that once I start knitting while I’m fighting boss level bad guys, or while I’m in a dungeon-bound group with my friends, I may need to go into rehab. Is there a Knitting Gamer’s Anonymous?

What was I doing all weekend when I could have been playing free video games of all sorts? Knitting, of course. I started Tubey while booth babeing it up at MAGFest last weekend. Here I am being visited by the rest of the gang- Shannon and Ananth.




Also, this is me practicing this whole ‘putting pictures online’ thing. Not bad, eh?