Saturday random:

One thing you never want to hear from the phone-help tech, when you can't access your e-mail (and have tried everything you can do from your side of the screen, before calling them) is "Gee, I've never heard of that particular error message before."

The good news is that he apparently had a book, looked it up (what a concept) and told me that one fix might be to download the newest Firefox. Which I did, and which worked. (What a relief. I had ordered a pattern and was expecting it to come last night/this morning - and I was afraid if my webmail died, I'd have to do a little rigamarole to get the pattern re-sent once I was able to get new e-mail set up. It's printing right now).

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The one sad thing is that the "Old Factory" theme - greatly beloved by me - is no longer compatible. So I had to choose a new skin for my browser. I tried "Aquatint Black" but it was a little bit too stark. And "Nautopolis" seemed to be making a lot of allusions I didn't get.

So I wound up choosing - and admit to considerable embarrassment about this - the one called "Pimpzilla." Because it's SPARKLY. The icons - like the back button and the home button - are like little diamond encrusted charms. And the toolbar background is sort of a pink marble. It's ridiculous and overdone but I can overlook the whole "bling" idea and just think of it as a "girly" browser skin. Because it has little hearts on it and all.

Yes, choosing a browser skin for my home computer is important to me, why do you ask?

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I'm getting sock-startitis. I saw the Spring Forward sock on Knitty and wasn't terribly taken with it - then I saw it on someone's blog (I don't remember which one - one of my Ravelry "friends" I think) done in an orange and my response was, wow, I want to knit that.

(Edited to add: it's Stacey's. From "On and Off the Needles." I like that orange much better for the pattern than the original pale green. I'm thinking of pulling out the "Chinese Red" Shibui yarn I bought back in February - when everything was drab and grey - and using it for a pair of these)

I think the darker color - and the solid color - was what did it; it seemed to be a better showcase for the pattern. (I'll have to check my extensive sockyarn stash to see what looks best for it.)

I've also been poring over my other archived sock-patterns and wanting to start a bunch of new ones. Including another pair of Jaywalkers out of a red variegated Wildfoote. And a slip-stitch sock out of the color "Sonatina" of the variegated Wildefoote (it is pink and white.)

But I do have one project I feel obligated to finish up and send off to its recipient (and I plan to complete it this weekend). And I've got an embroidery project that keeps drawing my attention because it amuses me, and because there's something fundamentally soothing about doing just plain backstitch.

I think I find embroidery soothing to do because there's the aspect of seeing the picture develop before your eyes - I think it's a very similar satisfaction to what people feel when doing painting (even paint-by-number paintings. Which were VERY popular mid-century - my grandma had a couple of Italian street scenes that I think my dad did for her up on her wall [I wonder what became of them...] and I know there were hundreds of designs out there.)

Actually, you can still buy the kits.

I know for a while it was hip to mock the whole IDEA of paint-by-number, but you know - I've seen the old paintings showing up in antique shops more and more, and some of the decorating/"hip home" magazines have featured people who have collections of them.

And there is something undeniably soothing and satisfying (at least to people like me) in slowly, bit-by-bit, adding to something and watching the finished product emerge. OK, fine, so it's not Rembrandt (though I think you could buy kits that were reproductions of Rembrandt pieces). But there is something good and worthwhile about the PROCESS even if you want to mock the final product.

(And you know? I don't. I like the paint-by-number paintings - there's something sort of comforting to them to me. As I said - my grandmother had a couple up on her wall. And I had at least one kit like that as a kid - a couple of Snoopy pictures that I think I never actually finished.)

So I find that when I'm sitting in the evening, tired, it's kind of nice to pick up that Cat Face Pillow and slowly add to the outline of it. (And I do think I'm going to do the "companion piece" I alluded to, except that I think I'm going to keep it as much of a secret as I am capable of keeping things on this blog, until it's done).

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Yesterday was a good day research-wise. I spent most of it doing my favorite part of research - my favorite part of my job (well, next to having students out in the field and getting to play Natural History Guru and show them stuff like spittle bugs and oak galls), analyzing and interpreting data.

Part of it is the whole puzzle aspect - what does this mean? How does this fit in with what we already know? How is it different? But there's also the element of surprise - where you don't quite know what you're going to find. And then the satisfaction when you see patterns, and those patterns kind of make sense.

I think it's because it's the kind of work my brain is fundamentally good at - pattern-seeking, fitting bits and pieces of things I already know together - that I enjoy it so much.

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A funny, from my little local newspaper last night. (Sometimes the "crime stories" are the best part). This one involved a beef jerky theft from one of the local gas stations:

The store clerk showed the officer surveillance footage that showed a man take a container of beef jerky into the bathroom. He then left with the jerky stuffed in his shorts. The clerk chased him to a nearby apartment, according to the report...[the arresting officer] found the suspect and brought him back to the store where he was identified by the store clerk.


The report did not reveal whether the beef jerky was recovered.

It must be kind of fun to be a small-town crime reporter. I can imagine the guy who wrote that chuckling over the last line.

(Note to self: do not buy beef jerky from that store for a while, just in case it WAS "recovered" and went back in the jar).