Friday, October 22, 2010

Quick and Not-So-Quick Takes

The Bruins game last night was an entertaining (for Bruins fans) 4-1 win over Washington, where the Bruins* closed down Alex Ovechkin for the second straight game, broke Washington's previously perfect-on-the-season penalty killing (and their own less-than-stellar power play) wide open with three power-play goals, and overall played a good strong game. My boy Patrice had two assists, Chara blew in a rocket, and Nathan Horton is on pace for the best goal total the Bruins have had since Phil Esposito (hint: that's a long time).

*apparently undismayed by the anthem rendition, and by the way hasn't the coverage of that been fun today: "hideous shrieking", anyone? And after listening to it again I can't help wondering, how did he hit "land of the free" and blow "home of the brave"?

Even the one goal against, which was a gilt-edged gift to the Caps from Tim Thomas* (who has been stellar in net but is still capable of making mistakes), did not change the tide as it easily might.

*I'm quite sure that Timmy knows better than to charge out of his net to play the puck and then pass it directly to the oncoming opponent, and yet...

The only thing I didn't really appreciate (well, other than the anthem) was that when they were announcing the team, someone--and I don't know if it was NESN or at the Garden--felt it necessary to play quirky music the whole time. I could still hear the player names, but not the crowd. It's a live event, let me hear them cheering, please.

The Bruins, with a record of 4-1, are off to their best start in some years, and it's fun to watch. I'm nervous of how long it will last, but goodness, the signs are certainly propitious at this stage, and one can hardly ask for more. One indicator that the team is relaxed and balanced and all that good team stuff comes from this Bruins Blog post where Tuukka Rask was asked about the starting goalie for tomorrow's game:
“It’s a secret,’’ said Rask, and giggled.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but do stressed, anxious athletes giggle to the media? I think not.

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So a few weeks ago, I bought some new work slacks, as you may recall (though why would you, but whatever). I've been wearing them to work since, naturally, and they're working out just fine. I've been surprisingly pleased with the ones I picked up at Savers. They're brown, a good length and fit for me, and of a smooth fabric* that drapes well and feels fancy without being fussy. And if I sound surprised, it's because I would never have guessed that Old Navy made pants like this. You know, for grown-ups, for office work.

*The tag was cut out, so I don't actually know what the material is. It survived the washing machine and dryer just fine, though.

I don't shop at Old Navy much, but I've spent some time there, and to me their clothing is young, casual, and cheap in more than one sense of the word. And there's nothing wrong with that: sometimes a five-dollar t-shirt is just what you need, or a casual skirt that might last two summers, if you're lucky and careful. But these? I would have guessed a dozen other places were the source. What you can learn by bargain shopping.

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My mother told me recently that she heard drinking Gatorade can cure headaches, and googling it shows me that this is not an isolated idea. Part of me thinks, hey, it could work, for some people at least, and I picked some up at Target. But part of me is also thinking, I bet someone who works for Gatorade started this story.

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Given my own less than optimal Ravelry party experience at Rhinebeck this year, I was interested to read the Ravelry post-Rhinebeck blog, and in fact and not much to my surprise there was much positivity in it, and almost no regret. (For example, I would personally have appreciated a postscript to the we-had-great-goody-bags section that mentioned how they wished they'd had enough for everyone.) It did get me to thinking, though, about Ravelry, and how it is different things to different people.

Really, the party isn't aimed at me and users like me, who use Ravelry (and love it!) as a tool:
  • I use the site to keep track of my stash, and my needles, so I can flip through yarn and tools virtually when, for instance, I'm contemplating a pattern. It eliminates the don't I have... and the I forgot all about..., as well as enabling away-from-home checking if need be.
  • I use it to keep track of my projects: when I started, what yarn and needle size I used, any mods I made. To an extent, I use my blog for this, too, but it's handy having it in one place, no searching required. (Searching my blog for the word "sock" is going to bring up a lot to sift through.)
  • And I use the pattern search, to get ideas and tag possibles and see if others had the same problem I'm having.
It's wonderful for all these things, and I'm so happy to have it. But there is a whole Ravelry community that I'm not in touch with.

Other people use Ravelry for other things, things that I'm not as interested in, or at least not to the point of finding time for (I find it to be a potentially huge time-suck, which isn't a bad thing, but makes me cautious). I do very, very little in groups and forums. I haven't taken part in any swaps or knit-alongs. There are probably things I don't even know are there that could be someone else's favorite thing about Ravelry.

There's nothing wrong with my not using features, and other people using them, and really it's a sign of how much Ravelry can do. (Please don't take this as anti-Ravelry rhetoric, is what I want to be clear on.)

The party, and the meet-ups, and all, are really for the users who take part in the Ravelry community, and I just don't really do that. Even last year, the party was fun but not a thrill for me. I doubt I'll go next year. But I'll use Ravelry all year, most happily, in my way.

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It's no surprise that different people can have vastly different readings of the same book. Still I kind of thought it was funny, when reading the list of the top challenged books this year, to see that Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper was challenged for "sexism, homosexuality, being sexually explicit, having offensive language, religious viewpoints, drugs, suicide, violence, and being unsuited to age group" when all I really remember is how cheated I felt by the ending.

And exactly what age group do they mean? It's not a children's book, nor even YA, it's adult fiction. Maybe it was shelved in YA somewhere (why, though?), and that specifically was challenged?

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I was on the library website tonight looking for an upcoming anthology that got a starred review in PW. The system found it by my search, which was for the editors' last name and the key word of the title, but it wanted to be sure that when I typed "vandermeer steampunk", I didn't mean "wanderer stamp".


Because that makes so much more sense.

1 comment:

  1. Mystery fabric from Old Navy. . . that doesn't sound too surprising. Machine washable? That would be a bonus. I have Gap pants from my sister that were surprisingly decent and actually the right length.

    We had a number of Piccoult books at the high school library. High circulation. Come to think of it, I remember hearing a teenage boy declare his love for Piccoult in a Borders once. Obviously he was with a group of girls not boys.

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