My TV is taking over my life.

Seriously.

Thank GOD I don’t have TiVo or I would honestly *never* leave my apartment!

So what have I been watching, you ask?

I lost my entire Sunday to a Project Runway* Marathon. I’m talking a full-on, 9-hour Marathon, peeps. I sat down at 11am, and didn’t move till 8pm. Paralyzed. Helpless. Addicted.

{{sigh}}

So sad.

On top of that, TCM is running their annual 31 Days of Oscar. 31 days of ONLY Oscar nominated and Award-winning movies, commercial free. I turn that shit on, and it doesn’t matter WHAT is playing, I get sucked in. For hours. Some of the highlights?

• Cat on A Hot Tin Roof – 1958
• Dr. Zhivago - 1965
• Gaslight – 1944
• The Magnificent Seven – 1960
• Gone With The Wind – 1939
• It Happened One Night – 1934
• Born Free – 1966
• The Way We Were - 1973
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – 1948
• Rebecca – 1940

I could go on, but I’m tired of finding the links

I.

Can’t.

Stop.

Watching.

Unfortunately, this means I’m also not doing a whole lotta knitting. I can’t Rogue (cables) and watch TV and thrumming only interests me for so long. I HAVE gotten in a bit of knitting though…

1/3 way through Thrum Mitten #2!

What’s that? A Finished Thrummed Mitten?? Although it’s not technically a FO, I can’t show a completed Thrummed Mitten without showing you the inside, so here ya go:

THRUM MONSTER!! GRRRR!!

I’ve also gotten back in my Rogue Saddle! I figure I’ll let the length-challenged sleeve sit for a while and move on to his brother… (If they’re THIS much of a pain in the ass, they HAVE to be boys!)

Sleeve #2 has been started!

New Baby Cables!

I need to start putting in a little more QT with Rogue, as she’s coming along rather s l o w l y. More Rogue, Less TV.

What else have I been up to? Not much, I guess… Well? Uh.. actually, um, this:

hee.

In my defense, I’ve had that box at least a week Oh, and that one whole bar of chocolate there? Yeah, it’s half gone now. (thanks again, Silvia!)

Heh. Chocolate gooooooooooooooood.

* how depressed am *I* that, in search of that link you for guys, I accidentally found out that Jay WON Project Runway BEFORE I actually got to go home and WATCH the finale? Goddamnit.

In case you were wondering, I HAVE actually been knitting this week. I just haven’t been posting

What have I been knitting, you ask?

The Sleeve That Makes Me Wanna Toss Myself Off The Side Of A Firey Mountain.

Rogue is supposed to knit up at 4.5 stitches/in. and 6 rows/in.

Try and see if you can figure out what’s wrong with this situation:

At first I thought it was the YARN. It HAD to be, right? I thought that my Beaverslide Yarn just hated me AND my Rogue sleeve.

It couldn’t have been ME!! I CALCULATED!!!!

Naturally, of course, I realized that it WAS me and MY BAD MATH!

I mean, c’mon. It’s so painfully OBVIOUS that I was on crack when I came up with my pattern adjustments.

So, as a result, I’m thoroughly depressed. I feel like such a failed knitter. Did I mention that I had to rip back and reknit about 20 rows of my sleeve cap because I did my decreases all wonky? Yeah, rrrrrriiiiiiiped. REKNIT. Felt Proud! That is, until my stupid, hateful sleeve came up 1 inch short!

Oh, PLUS, SOMEHOW, my perfect stitch gauge changed on me from 4.5st/in. to 5st/in., making the damn thing half an inch NARROWER than it should be!!

Meanwhile, my GGSE™ is pilling and fuzzing like a MAD GIRL after only three wears and even NON-knitters can tell that the fit of it is kinda wierd. I almost don’t want to wear it out anymore out of fear that someone else is gonna tell me the shoulders make me look all linebacker/hunchback/muscleman-like.

Can you tell there is a knitty-pity party going on here?

Aaaannnyway. I have a few options, I guess…

• Rip back 100+ rows back to the end of Chart D and reknit the stupid sleeve. I’m sure the yarn will LOVE that. I’m worried about this sweater pilling as it is.
• Forget about the sleeve for now and start the body. It might seem less depressing if I ignore the fact that I’ve stupidly wasted several hours of my life and move on as though nothing happened.
• Make another sleeve. That way, I’ll have one finished sleeve, move on to the body, and THEN, after the body, I’ll have the short-ass sleeve to rip back, which will be 1/4 done already, making me feel like I’m almost to the finish-line, thus offsetting the depression brought on by the ripping!
• Ditch this stupid sweater altogether. I’m not going to finish before the winter ends ANYWAY.
• Send the Beaverslide to Yarn Stash Hell and BUY NEW YARN THAT KNITS TO GAUGE! Start over.

In other news, I got *the sweetest* package from Rossana !!!

Her Copy of Vogue Knitting, three tins of tasty Adagio Teas, a Chococat Pen, and A SHEEPY TAPE MEASURE.

She sent all this to me for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER! Just to be nice And it IS!! SOOOO NICE!!!

I have coveted that sheepy tape measure for as long as I can remember. I waaaaaaaannnnted it. I loooooooooooooooooooooooove it. Sheeeeeep! And. AND! I’ve TOTALLY been looking for a Chococat pen EXACTLY LIKE THAT! I’m not even remotely kidding! Not to mention I LOVE tea!

Rossana, you really do rock. Thank you Shit, it’s cheering me up just THINKING about my lovely package!

Ok, time to head home. Have a great weekend! I’m going to go cry now.

Edited to add:Ok, I’m a DOLT. It wasn’t my math. I just got home and checked my notes. I didn’t calculate wrong, I jsut happened to leave off 10 f’in rows on a whim, apparently! 10 straight rows after the increases! 124/7.5 = 16.5″ = THE RIGHT LENGTH! There will still be ripping, and I’m still gonna cry about it, but at least it’s 55 rows and not 100.

Back in high school, I was good in Math. It was one of my best subjects!!! I scored a 670 on the Math part of the SAT! I took Calculus!!!! In fact, I did well enough on my AP Calculus exam that I got out of taking any math in college whatsoever (granted, it was the easier Calculus level, and I only got a 3 out of 5, and my school was apparently kinda lenient on the math requirements, but STILL)

Why is it then, that it took me TWO DAYS of crunching numbers and looking confused to figure out how to adjust the Rogue sleeve to accomodate my wonky row gauge? TWO DAYS, PEOPLE. Just to figure out how many rows I needed to add and where they needed to go!!!!

{{{sigh}}}

At one point, I wrote to Paula, and she was all like, ” Oh! Just multiply the number of rows by the number of stitches you’re getting and divide by the square root of the circumference of pi times 12 squared!”

Ok, maybe she didnt say that exactly, but point is, I have no idea WHAT she said I just smiled (over email) and nodded.

Thankfully, I think I’ve got it now. Yesterday I worked on some numbers and I think it *clicked*!

All of this is just to say I really have nothing to show you. My Rogue sleeve is just about where Paula’s was last Sunday. I’ve also managed to finish the first of my thrummed mittens and cast on for the second, but I didn’t take any pictures, so… still nothin’ to show.

However, because I can’t leave you on a Friday with nothing, I give you this*.

Happy weekend

* After you’ve wasted an hour of your life on this and still totally haven’t figured it out, go here and read the comments. Then send hate mail to Darren.

So, like, I was feeling all sad and dejected because no one tagged me for any of those MEMEs going around…and THEN (wait for it…)…

I was tagged!!!

By not one, but TWO PEOPLE!!

WOO HOO!!

You DO like me!!!!

So, here ya go:

1. Total amount of music files on your computer: I think the last time I saw my iTunes (I’m at work now…), there were about 650 songs on there. I know, I know, you’d think there’d be more, being that I’m a radio DJ and all…I guess most of my music is still on CD. I LOVE buying CDs. I don’t really believe in downloading illegally and I only buy a song here and there off of iTunes. If I really like an album, I buy the CD.
2. The last CD you bought was: Technically, the last one I bought was a gift, so I can’t say. But the last one I bought for ME was ERASURE : NIGHTBIRD. Sooooo gooooooooooooooooood.
3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message? Ooooh, tough question, since I’m doing this meme at work and I totally don’t remember what was playing 10 minutes ago. The song playing right now is What’s Luv? by Fat Joe and Ashanti.
4. What are your five favorite songs and why they mean the most to you: Damn. Another tough one. How can anyone pick just 5!?!?!?!?!?! Here are five songs that have been significant to me…
   • My Life – Billy Joel – I have a tape of me singing this song when I was 6 years old. It’s a tape of my dad asking all about why I loved Billy Joel because I had the HUGEST CRUSH ON HIM (why? I’m still not sure. Billy ain’t cute.) My dad died when I was 13.
   • Mercy in You – Depeche Mode – I don’t actually like this song that much, but Depeche Mode is my favoritest band ever and this coincidentally happens to be the song I um, lost my, uh…nevermind.
   • Silent All These Years – Tori Amos – Probably my favorite Tori song, and my favorite to sing to. When I, on the rare occasion, bust out with the Karaoke, this is the one I sing (or uh, attempt to sing ). Tori Amos doesn’t play the piano, she CHANNELS MUSICAL ENERGY. She has a connection to that instrument I’ve never really felt with anyone else. It’s stunning.
   • Gorecki – Lamb – It’s a toss up between this one or Lamb’s Gabriel. Since Gorecki introduced me to Lamb, Gorecki wins. If it didn’t bust out into some crazy beats in the middle, it would be my perfect wedding song. Louise’s lyrics with Andy’s beats and knob twiddling just capture something so beautiful and perfect about love and finding that person you just fit with. Check it out.
   • Hollaback Girl – Gwen Stefani – This is currently the song I get hype to. This is a scream-along, stomp-along, girl-chant song and is soooooooooooooooooooo fun! ‘CAUSE I AIN’T NO HOLLABACK GIRRRRRRL!
5. What 3 people are you going to pass this baton to and why? hrmmm. Who hasn’t done this yet?
   • Rossana because she just got a new iPod and I wanna know what’s ON it!
   • Mat because Mat knows music.
   • Angela because she is MAD funny, and I’m just totally curious (even though it’s not really her blog style, maybe she’ll oblige )

Look at the time stamp on today’s entry. Dude. I’ve been up since 9a. I gotta finish up and get outta here…

Knitting updates later this week