Monday, September 19, 2011

Knits for Nerds!

My friend Toni Carr (aka Joan of Dark) has put together her second knitting book. (The first one was Knockdown Knits. Go buy it now!)

Now, I would be excited just that she has a new book out, and that she's awesome (because, among other things, she likes bats). However, just to make things more amazing, I have TWO patterns in the book - Jayne Cobb Socks and Tank Girl Socks. I'm really happy with how they turned out, and the photos are simply amazing!

Now here's the bad news. You want to buy it right now and knit all the things? Sorry. Not gonna happen. You have to wait until February 21, 2012. However, you CAN pre-order it from various online booksellers.

Somehow, seeing the book up on Knit Picks today really made my day. I love Knit Picks. They provided all the yarn support for my sock patterns in the book. In fact, go pre-order the book there! I insist.
Knits for Nerds on Knit Picks

Friday, September 16, 2011

Farmageddon




For some reason, I really love documentaries. I love documentaries about interesting and offbeat topics (Murderball, Air Guitar Nation, King of Kong, The Parking Lot Movie). I love documentaries about important environmental topics (Who Killed the Electric Car?). But most of all, I love documentaries that highlight our society's problems with food, especially those that expose the seedy underbelly of McDonald's, factory farming, or our own beloved government (Food Inc., King Corn, Supersize Me).

This week, I managed to snag a couple of free tickets to see Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Farms (http://farmageddonmovie.com/). It was eye opening, sad, distressing, educational, and very well done. It told the stories of small farmers who had unwittingly incurred the unwanted (and unwarranted) attention/ire/wrath of various governmental agencies and suffered the horrendous consequences.

Among the various stories told, there was one theme that really caught my attention. Raw milk. Our government hates raw milk. It's okay for us to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or take prescription drugs with hideous side effect, but our government WILL protect us from the raw milk.

I have been left with an overwhelming urge to now drink raw milk. There are some intriguing (but slightly suspicious) claims that it can help with asthma, so that's worth a shot. But really, the movie just made me feel angry and wanting to do something. There's not much in my power that I can do, but I could probably get my hands on some of that tantalizingly illegal liquid.

In Indiana it is illegal to sell raw milk. There are ways around this. Some places sell raw milk and raw milk products as "pet food" labeled "not for human consumption". That's fair. The other option is to buy a part of a cow (not a whole cow). Once you own a share in a cow, and you pay part of its boarding fee, you are entitled to its milk. Interesting...

I'm having trouble finding myself some pet food raw milk. I'm looking online, but I don't think anything is available locally. So now I guess I'm in the market to buy a partial cow with the intent of drinking a controlled substance. I have a mission.