In the style of a friend of a friend, I have decided to loose the mono-topical posting coil and instead write about some of the many things that were interesting to me today.

Thing 1: I am suffering from knitting paralysis, and boy is it unpleasant. Because I arrived at the end of my Christmas gift to-do list Friday night, I am now free from constraints, other than that I really need something simple and portable so that I can take it to SD with me tomorrow.

Saturday I started my new felted laptop sleeve. As far as that goes, I am very pleased with the design so far (details and photos eventually), but my unwillingness to compromise my design has led to a very high-maintenance sort of knitting. Lots of color changes means that this is not an ideal project for travel and visiting. Sunday I started another project (gift for friend–no details until completion), and it turns out that the pattern is just not as cool as I thought it was, so it has been abandoned.

I could start the brown socks, but I’m terrified that cables and lace will get all screwed up in the face of a cocktail or an engaging conversation. I’ll have to check my queue again for something more straightforward. Or, maybe I’ll just hit the yarn store.

Thing 2: Today in my travels around the internets I encountered a fantastic little clip from a fantastic little show you might have heard of, probably from me:

JFK said something similar (and stunningly timeless) in his Don’t-be-concerned-that-I’m-Catholic Speech:

I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding office.

I guess my point is that there are lots of reasons to be afraid of candidates like Huckabee and Romney, and them downplaying the way their faith will inform their actions, should they be elected, is really just the tip of the melting iceberg.

Thing 3: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I found this pretty fantastic feature on MSN Live Search today that needs to be shared: one-click directions.   Essentially, rather than waste your time typing in your starting address, it accounts for the general direction or approach you would take from any of the four cardinal directions, and tells you the end of your route only.  Brilliant!  Don’t waste my time telling me how to get TO the freeway, I’ve done that a few billion times, just tell me what I need to know.

An example for getting to Cafe Ladro from four likely starting points:

MSN LiveSearch…who knew?

Thing 4: I will definitely post more about this when it starts to be a real thing, but for now, I’m just really excited and wanted to share.  Matt and I have signed up for Seattle Startup Weekend in January.  Basically, by signing up you are agreeing to become a founding member of a brand-new startup.  The entire group works from 6pm Friday to 11:55pm Sunday to create, plan, and implement a new web-based business.  All participants are given an equity stake.   First of all, this idea excites me because I hear that lots of smart, energetic, motivated individuals hang out at events like this and I could always use more of them in my life.  Second, I’m excited for the opportunity to take my learning in my new job and field-test it somewhere else.

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of making this blog a more serious place.  By more serious, I mean a place to actually air out some generally pithy (I flatter myself) thoughts.  Stuff like politics, culture, marketing, user-generated content, and other geeky/business-y things that are relevant to me, here, now, that might be relevant to others out there who aren’t related to me.

On the other hand, I think maybe I’ve already set this up to be a personal blog, and I should not stretch myself, since posting regularly about nothing other than my own little world seems to be beyond me.

And then, while I’m weighing all this out in my head, I encounter something that absolutely, positively, MUST be shared.

Friends, I present to you, a 7-year summary of our government’s paper-shredding budget:

From the full article:

Federal spending on paper shredding has increased more than 600 percent since George W. Bush took office…. In 2000, the feds spent $452,807 to make unpleasant truths go away; by 2006, the “Cheney Effect” had bumped that number up to $2.9 million. And by halfway through 2007, the feds almost matched that number, with $2.7 million and counting.

If that doesn’t open your eyes to the corruption in our very own government, I don’t know what will.

So there.  Today it’s serious.  Tomorrow, there might be more Blingees.  You just never know.

I’ve been called out.  Apparently there is one person out there who likes sparkly, animated, flashing cartoons.  Well, one person over the age of 30…

In response to my assertion of the evil of Blingees, this was created in my honor.

Said Amy:

Oh and Linds I made you this Blingee.  It’s Betty Boop on a bike, because I know you like to bike, and I am also just going to assume you like alliteration.

Items of note: ascii heart in top left corner, Betty’s shiny shiny rims, and the pair of guide-me-to-the-baby-jesus stars rising over the beach.  Other than that, I think this image pretty much speaks for itself.

Amy, you know how sometimes you buy something for someone that you think is horrible, but you just know they’re going to love it, so you do it anyway?

So there you have it. It started around 1pm on Saturday, and didn’t stop until about 7pm that night. In just two hours, though, there was enough to flummox the windshield wipers and make me grateful for AWD on the Sub. It was lovely, really. I’ve never actually watched snow fall in the place where I live before, and certainly didn’t expect that I would on December 1, but there you have it.

I hear, you know, around, that this snow, and the unstoppable rain (NOT good ol’ Seattle drizzle, mind you, but jeans-soaking rain) are very unusual in general, but extremely unusual this time of year. Just so you don’t think I’m being a wienie.  Matt took other pictures that you can see on flickr.  Enjoy.

Also, for anyone who is keeping track, my personal unit test score was 65% today–not my highest, and not my lowest. Though, truth be told, I didn’t take the test for a couple of days there over the weekend, knowing how dreadfully low the score would be. Ted was correct in his warnings that, sincere as your effort may be, trying to game your own system is an inevitability. The best thing you could do to circumvent this, he said, is to make tests that are objective. That is, observable from the outside. Would an unattached stranger see that you flossed your teeth? Clearly, if you had, the answer is yes.

Of course, the next thing that happens is that you start to live by the letter of the law, instead of the spirit of the law. Example: the housekeeper came yesterday and also I did not clean the counters in the kitchen. Keep in mind that we did cook dinner last night and cleaning the counters would have been justified. But, this morning, as I took my test, I tried to convince myself that I should pass the Kitchen Counter test, because even though I didn’t do it, the counters did get wiped at some time yesterday so that’s just as good. See what I mean?

Also, Ted’s absolutely right about this weekend mess. Part of the problem is that you’re allowed to do things on weekends that you’re not on weekdays. It’s a problem because in many ways it’s really ill-defined, exactly the ways that weekends differ. Clearly, I don’t have to put in an 8-hour work day, but does that mean I also don’t have to floss? What about the clothes on the floor–if I have them cleaned up before I go to bed on Monday, is that good enough? Then there’s this whole take-Sunday’s-test-on-Monday thing…

Don’t worry, though, I’m not giving up. I’m still here, and I’m going to tweak and annotate my tests until I have completely mastered my gums and my habit of throwing sort-of clean clothes on the floor.

Here, look at more snow:

I heard it on NPR, people, and you know they never lie.  Today’s forecast for Seattle: Snow.  Not “possible snow showers” or “chance of snow” but one inch today and three more overnight, they say.  I’ll tell you the truth, I’m a little freaked out.  Snow was always a lovely addition to a weekend in the mountains, but I’m really not sure how I feel about it invading my real life.

Also, the purple mashed were lovely.  The skin is tougher, which makes them excellent mashed because the skin doesn’t hide like with other potatoes.  Although there is an alarming resemblance, they don’t taste anything like grape Bubble Yum.