FuzzyLogic

Oh! Shiny!

2009-05-31T17:30:49-04:00

FuzzyLogic got a facelift!

It's so p.r.e.t.t.y! it's so white, it's so red, it's so....2001!

The auld time is passed

Your friend in high school had colour TV, you and Janis always wanted one.
FuzzyLogic brings it to YOU! Right here on your browser.

We had the technology, so we rebuilt it

We've changed the body, we've updated the brain but we didn't spend 3B$ in taxpayer's money!

Cool new features

Your eyes won't hurt as much while trying to read.
The sidebar contains a random section where links change unexpectedly on each visit. It's great when you're bored!
You get listed on the main page when you post a comment. With the massive traffic that we have, you can be sure it's instant fame on teh Intertubes! Your minutes of fame may however be delayed for an undefinite amount of time due to bandwidth limitations.
In order to offer a better user experience and be more in synergy with our readers (blame Spiff. He insisted we use the word "synergy" somewhere...), we thought we needed to streamline our outgoing communication, so Lee Ann has finally moved ass mouse and is sorting her bookmarks into categories (all categories will contain at least 1 bookmark, and one category contains about 600 of them. That's a lot of blog reading, dudes.). The main page and the links are actually usable now (except for the photo gallery, which we're working on), and it should also help in creating less head-crash-on-keyboard-zomg-your-bookmark-list-makes-no-sense drama from our support staff. This and world peace.
We're bored with blog spammers so there is now one of those stupid catch ya katia questions that you need to answer before posting a comment. If you really hate it, please let us know and we'll get rid of it or come up with something far more brilliant. However, it's a very simple math question that passes the Twinkletoes test, and if she says it's fa-fa-bé-bé, you qualify as a commenter. Also, a mammal.

Old features that did not make it

Uh? What features?

We hope you will enjoy the new FuzzyLogic!
La Direction.

About this blog...

2009-05-17T10:37:33-04:00

What is this blog?

It came out of nowhere, directly from Outer Space. Run away while you can!

Because I can.

2008-09-23T00:04:53-04:00

To the physical therapist über-runner treating my shinsplints 15 years ago who looked me up and down and said, "Honey, you're just not built for running":

Kiss my medallion, dude.
Yeah, my face is red and I run like a girl.
But I'm a fast girl and I finished.

Also, this photo is the final proof to you all that I should never knit lace sleeves again. Those are some serious shoulders, dude.

And...we're back. Knitting content after an OMGWTF moment and a plea for a wee bit of assistance.

I should preface all of this by saying, despite my powerlifting past (true!) and the fact that I've ridden a century in my lifetime and did the second 3-hundred-holy-f***-you're-kidding-me AIDS Ride way back in the nineties, I am SO not an athlete. I was the kid who no one wanted on their team because I ran out of breath too fast, I was too short to shoot, and most of all, I was too slow to nail anything but my own shins. So I don't actually run superfast compared to female runners who take this thing very seriously, and as far as distance is concerned, I have never in my life been able to run more than two miles. Until a few weeks ago, when I decided that I should take the 5K I had just run without falling on my head (OMGWTFBBQthatwasME!) and do it with a number on my chest and a whole street full of other people wanting to accomplish the same goal. I blame Rachael.

So, with three weeks of training and a realisation that running keeps the panicky moments from getting too hairy (I am not a calm person these days), I decided to run the Montreal Oasis Marathon 5K. And I finished it. In my usual 10-minute-mile pace, which was, amazingly enough, in the top half of times for women 40-44 years old, but I finished it.

(Yeah, I'm so old that when I participate in a run, they call me a Senior or a Master. For obvious reasons, I prefer Master. Spiff disagrees.)

And since I crossed that finish line inside the Olympic Stadium not only without dying or puking, but with a healthy dose of elation, I decided that, when a friend asked me if I was running the CIBC Run for the Cure, I would say, "Why, yes, indeedy, I am." (Ran to go register immediately after conversation...nothing like seat-of-the-pants participation...) The CIBC Run for the Cure is held in cities all across Canada on October 5 and benefits breast cancer research. Knitty takes a team every year to run it in Toronto, and now I'm going to do it too, in Montréal.

It's only 5K. And I'm a damned lucky person for getting to say "it's only 5K" instead of having no choice but to say "it's only a breast." My two grandmothers both had breast cancer, though they died of other simultaneously occurring cancers, my boss at Harvard beat the disease and is still going strong, and my good friend Hélène has been fighting the disease for the past year. She's winning too, but it's been a scary round of surgeries and treatment that has not ended yet. She is my biggest inspiration to run. Because I can. It's only 5K, I'm healthy, and while I will never win my races, I can try to help women fighting this shitty disease to win theirs. I can do that much. And I will finish with the hope that this run will get us closer to finishing off breast cancer for good.

If you feel so inclined, please sponsor me and donate online here. Let's rock the Run, dudes.

In knitting news, there is an obscene amount of bulky yarn in my house now, thanks to the online "oooh, sale yarn" sinkhole known as WEBS. Spiff thinks I'm using it as insulating material, but I assure you that it is going to turn into sweaters, because not only do I finish races, I nearly almost whoa they're over a third of the way done finish sleeves.

This is the real colour.
And Durrow's sleeve cables rock my world.
Jodi, you're a genius.

You may also have heard a rumour that the SpindiCate Hitcher decided to go live at Ariadne Knits to indoctrinate a few spinners. It's true. For those of you who don't know the story, this wheel was first sent to my friend Etherknitter Laurie by our mutual friend Mamacate in order to...heu...encourage her to spin. The caveat was that once she learned, she had to pass it on to another unsuspecting fool who looked ripe for the converting. That would be me. But first she had to leave her mark on the wheel. She left a beaded loop with gold beads representing the hearts of the spinners the wheel had touched so far. That's because Laurie is beautiful, generous, and brings a gorgeous twist to everything she touches. When this wheel arrived on my doorstep from Massachusetts, I cried. And then I learned to spin. And then I cried some more. (I may also have kicked a wheel, thrown fibre across a room, and swore in ways that small children should not hear but did.) But I got over it, made yarn, and knit with it. And now I'm a lifer. So much so that even though a financial shitstorm is causing me to miss Rhinebeck this year, my stash barely feels the pinch.

Which, of course, means that it's time for the wheel to move on and teach a few other people how to have Eureka! yarnmaking moments. Complete with a big bag of fibre from my personal stash. And what was the mark that I left on the wheel?

The Traveling Hitcher in her new home.
Can you see the mark?

There you go, that's more like it.
I gave her a tattoo. It's Cate-approved,
and the French is correct, so don't you Louisianans
be telling me it's "les," not "le." Talk to my French editor.
He wields one mean baguette and he's not afraid to use it.

I'll be back when the sleeves are done. Meanwhile, if any of you have any good tips on improving short-term memory, I'd appreciate hearing about them. I had the scariest brain blip I've had in a long time, and while my neurologist told me I'd be having moments like this, he didn't tell me it would endanger life and limb.

Our smoke alarm works, my husband is quick
to put out flames, and I need this sign.

Just say no to multi-tasking, dudes. Just say no. Trust me on this one. No one was hurt, but the stove hood had to be scrubbed down, and I'm told the fright level was spectactularly high.

Thanks for sticking with me even though I post so infrequently. I'll do my best to stick with you, too. I have to. I've got seven bulky sweaters to knit, a birthday party for my TEN YEAR OLD OMGWTFhowdidthathappen to host and a 5K to run. Peace (and fire...thankyouthankyouthankyouSpiff) out.

Spiff Weighs In.

2008-08-13T00:18:16-04:00

If I started the sleeves, that means almost done, right?

As Bill Cosby's Noah would say, Riiiiight.
Now can you guess what I'm making,
even though the back and front
look like sleeves? And the lighting sucks?

Well, howdy, there, blogland...

Been a long time. I've been working my ass off, producing stuff for kids who need to learn English, and in the meantime, I did actually knit on a few things. And now that I'm on Va-Ca-Shun (w00t) I have also had the pleasure of visiting the Yves St. Laurent exhibit in Montréal and then seeing the goods inside Holt Renfrew for the first time. Jimmy Choos really are that beautiful, as are Christian Louboutins. My shopping companion was horrified that I even wanted to try them on, but I am proud to say I did not walk out with a pair of either 5-inch example of gorgeousness. (That's because I didn't try them on. I'm not stupid...I know that if I try on a gorgeously high pair of heels and they fit my size 5 Barney Rubble feet, I'm walking out in them. So no trying on and no purchase.)

Yet. (Sorry, Spiff. I like really, really high heels. Someday when you're forty and none of the young chickies look at you, you'll be thankful your wife likes the really, really high heels.)

Kate Gilbert, who has just produced the incredible Twist Collective, came with me. It's been nearly a year since she and I have traversed the 500 metres or so between our houses to spend time together, but I will give her a break because her latest venture is So. Freaking. Good. (Go see. You will knit something from this issue, trust me.) So Kate can attest that even though I killed my brand new car in the first week I owned it (Oh god. You do not want to know. Twenty years of driving crap cars and the moment I get a good one, I introduce it to a cement pylon in a grocery store), it still works. Also, the big knitted YSL penis does, indeed, look like a penis, and YSL, when he was not thinking about phallic symbols and how they could fit over a female body, kicked ass for colour, detail, and a V where a female body could use a V. I personally am dying for one of the very first gowns in the exhibit, which unfortunately is not in the photo book. It's an orange-red column gown with a twist just below the cleavage. In other words, if I put it on, I would have to decide that it's okay by me if the world sees the middle third of my core, if you know what I mean.

(I would SO wear that if I had a place to wear a gown. Life is too short to not show it if it's YSL showing it for you. Sorry, Mom.)

We investigated the husband-like clothing at Holt Renfrew, and the Hermès turtleneck sweater they had would be so perfect for Spiff. Except it costs $2,395. Um, NO. It is a simple bulky cable and rib turtleneck, so I will be knitting that. It's just too freaking bad that the yarn alone, if I do the cashmere version of it, would be $600. We are currently researching alternative black-and-white marled soft stuff...if anyone knows of a great resource for a marled chunky black and white yarn, I'm all ears. It was really lovely, but I can't justify the price of, say, a year of a child's education, for a freaking turtleneck....

Spiff: His hair is really fucking stupid.
LA: I know. If I paid attention to models and their hair, or their other lack of, heu, attributes,
I'd never see the freaking clothes.
Just look at the sweater, sweetie.

So, for my blogging return for this month, I decided, for lack of a better plan, to interview Spiff, because (a) I'm making a sweater for him, (b) everyone else is posting cutesy interviews with their spouses and (c) hey, he's adorable. I like interviewing him, and I might get lucky later. Sue me.

So, here we go, the spousal meme interview:

LA: What is your favorite thing about my knitting?
Spiff: You make things out of practically nothing. I mean, it's string and sticks, and suddenly it's something real that fits someone. That's extremely creative and I like that. No one in this day and age makes things in a real way, but you do.

LA: (From that fabulously D&D/role-playing answer he just gave, now you know why I put up with all this video game stuff) What is your least favorite thing about my knitting?
Spiff: Sometimes it never gets done. I mean, how long have I been waiting for a sweater?

LA: How long have we been married?
Spiff: I rest my case. Also, it does kind of take over the house. Our music room doesn't exist because the wool still takes over everything.

LA: I'm working on that. (cough) So, do you think knitters have an expensive hobby?
Spiff: Not really, unless you count the wheels.

LA: Clearly, I do not count the wheels. That's not knitting. Ahem...so, do you have any hobbies?
Spiff: Duh. Programming.

LA: Wait a minute. I thought that was your actual day job.
Spiff: It is. What's your point?

LA: No, really, what do you do for fun?
Spiff: Programming IS fun.

LA: (Long silence...)
Spiff: Okay, when I'm not programming, which IS, by the way, FUN, I play video games like World of Warcraft.

LA: Yeah, speaking as a total non-video-game-player, WoW actually is fun. Otherwise, I would not have a level 70 paladin after never having even played PacMan.
Spiff: Yeah, a level 70 paladin who is completely lame at tanking, but nevermind...yes, it is fun, isn't it...

LA: So, if we compared money spent on hobbies, who would win?
Spiff: Ha. That's cheating. Wool is less expensive than electronics, but you buy way more wool than you can knit or spin in a lifetime, so we're actually even. But really, electronics are more expensive. Plus, you can rip and re-use. I can't do that as much.

LA: Has my knitting in public ever embarrassed you?
Spiff: No, never. Why would it? Knitting is cool.
LA: Have I mentioned I lust after you?
Spiff: In the last five minutes? Actually, yes, come to think of it...

LA: Damn. Don't tell anyone...they might think I have a one-track mind. So, do you know my favorite kind of yarn?
Spiff: Ummm...you do have a one-track mind...oh, yarn? heuuu....Alpaca! Wait, no! Uh, I don't actually know, but I'm sure alpaca figures in there somewhere...

LA: You clearly haven't felt silk and merino, have you...anyway, nevermind, you're doing really well compared to most spouses, sweetie. So, trick question: Can you name another blog?
Spiff: Easy. The Yarn Harlot.

LA: That is so not fair. You've had literary discussions with her on fantasy heroes, for chrissakes...name another one.

Spiff: Heuuu...Norma, who is extremely cute for her age because she does yoga, hint hint, has a blog, doesn't she...
LA: Yep, she does. Okay, you're not as bad as I thought, except that you're checking out other bloggers' asses. You are so predictable. So, next question: Do you mind that I want to check out yarn stores everywhere we go?
Spiff: It's a hell of a lot better than you wanting to check out male blogger's asses. Or bra shopping. That's way worse.

LA: I have NEVER made you go bra shopping. (Nice avoidance of the checking-out-asses issue, eh?...)It gives me a freaking migraine. Jesus, dude, I even go shopping for your pants, which is no picnic...

Spiff: Fine, fine, fair enough. No, I don't care if you go yarn shopping, as long as you go in and get what you want and go out without talking for an hour about the next five books coming out or whatever the hell it is you talked about in Montpelier when it took you like a half hour to buy one set of circs...you left me, a French guy, sitting by the side of the road in the States all alone waiting for you and who knows what will happen to me...oh, wait, this is Vermont so they're not so bad...nevermind, but still, twenty minutes to buy needles....

LA: I love your time variations, dude. You went from an hour to a half hour to twenty minutes. And hey, the ladies in the Knitting Studio are wicked nice, their credit card machine went on the blink and they still stuck it out and completed my sale, and the souvenir shop called them just to make sure they were open so I could get circs to do YOUR sleeves on the way back home to Montréal, so quit complaining.

(I neglected to mention to Spiff that they had about five different pattern booklets I hadn't yet seen in person and they were really super super nice and someone had just done a workshop with Steph and you do get talking to wooly funny people and...)

LA: So, Spiff, do you understand the importance of a swatch?
Spiff: A what?
LA: A swatch, sweetie. A knitting test case.
Spiff: Ohhhh, okay, I get it. Yes, I do. Same thing as programming...you plug in what your user has to do on a small scale and see what you get for a result. If it gets fucked up for the large scale, you know you have to re-code.
LA: Umm, yeah, pretty much. You're smart, eh?
Spiff: That's why they pay me the big bucks.

LA: Do you read my blog?
Spiff: You mean, when you get off your ass and post? Every time, darling, every time.

LA: Have you ever left a comment?
Spiff: Only when things go wrong technically. Or when someone says something really snide and I have to step in and set things straight. Or when people ask if you still have a brain. I tell them this is debatable...

LA: My lust is diminishing. Do you think the house would be cleaner if I didn't knit?
Spiff: Sweetie, I honestly don't give a crap about the housework, but no, I don't think that has any effect.
LA: My lust is increasing.
Spiff: You are so predictable.

LA: Is there anything you would like to add in closing?
Spiff: Yeah. When the hell do I get my first sweater?

This picture's more accurate, lighting-wise. Not pink.
Not orange. Not even close.

Just so's you don't all worry that I've lost my head and I'm knitting him a pink sweater, by the way, this is the real colour, a gorgeous dark marled red. It has black in it so it passes the Spiff test. And I just bought a crapload of yarn to knit more for him because apparently turtlenecks are not in this fall, and Mr. Spiff's elbows (which rival razor blades, I tell you) have insured that his stash of sweaters has diminished to an unacceptably low level. I must raise the sweater mana level at once. So, as much as I adore knitting thin...frickin' chunky yarn, here I come.

Boink.

2008-06-02T17:16:21-04:00

So this knitblogger walks into a bar...

It's dance show season. I look like I've been taking
fight-club lessons from a drag queen.

Yes, I know. I haven't appeared in this space for an extremely long time. And since randomosity is really the only flight path I can follow in order to re-enter the blogosphere after such an extended break, you'll have to fasten your seatbelts, kids. I have approximately twenty things to say, in no real order of their occurrence along the journey. If you have a hard time following along, don't worry. It's not your four bottles of in-flight jesus-that-is-NOT-wine, it's just me getting my blogging wings back. Thank you for not smoking the life-vests.

1. I thought I would have more time to myself once I pulled the lance of the free from its once-permanent place in my thigh, but it's not true. My time is now far more structured, which leaves me far less wiggle room to do things like cook, pee and read blogs. Also, deadlines still suck rocks. I had deadlines before, but with good snacks, real coffee and comfy pants. Deadlines in heels and a skirt with a mug of battery acid permanently attached to my hand seem more painful, somehow. And when I get home, I am a 2.25mm dpn away from comatose. At which time I miraculously transmogrify into SuperMomChefTeacherKindnessOfMyHeartWife and supervise homework in French while I create something halfway edible for two mere mortals and me from one egg and a three-week-old asparagus spear. My daughter is learning some very creative linguistic phrasing, that's for sure....

2. When the scientific progress goes boink, we order sushi.

3. We order sushi so often that the last time daughter decided she would rather have the egg-and-three-week-old-asparagus-spear-miracle plus toast, the sushi restaurant people called us back to make sure we had not made a mistake in our order because her standard rice bowl and crabstick wasn't on it. They even knew it was for the kid.

4. You know things have gone from weird to downright wacked when the takeout sushi restaurant people are worried that I'm neglecting my daughter's nutritional needs and call me back to double-check.

5. I turned 41. It's like 40 with crappier-tasting vitamins and lycra jeans.

6. I ripped no fewer than three knitting projects. Ripped them right down to their three-year-old-bad-yarn-day selves. It felt good in a way, but now I just have piles of curly yarn, which feel less like possibility than the unfinished pieces did, you know?

7. Moping aside, the lace-armed sweater is next on the ripping block. I plan to transmogrify it into something solid and simple and v-necked. Great Big Sea in a semi-solid needs a simple pattern, and the photographic evidence will show that I do not need square necklines or sausage arms.

8. Muscle still weighs more than fat.

9. Everything still takes longer than I think it should. See number 5.

10. Yet I'm just as strong as the 20-year-olds I dance with. They don't believe I'm 41.

11. My husband, however, believes I'm 42. It's a French guy thing.

12. I try not to take it personally. Also, he can't do the MC Hammer thing and I can. Nyah.

13. I started lifting weights again.

14. It is absolutely incredible how my daughter, who has a talent of disappearing into her room when I need her to do something for me, suddenly appears out of nowhere to conduct an extremely lengthy dialogue right next to my head involving a question-and-answer session about where squirrels go when they die and how would you say "decaying flesh" in French? just as I lift enormously heavy iron dumbbells over my face.

15. It is very sad, what I consider to be enormously heavy in the way of dumbbellness. I used to deadlift twice my weight. Now some of my dumbbells are...lavender. Ewww.

16. I have, however, decided to enter the next phase of physical fitness in my life with a modicum of grace. The dumbbells are lighter, sure, but I have finally mastered a Downward Dog that doesn't embarrass me.

17. Much. I mean, dude, you have to point the business end of your ass directly to the sky and everything else directly to the ground. It's as if you're flashing the universe a big ol' "Kick Me" sign. ("Kick" being a euphemism for whatever version of universal shafting you see fit to express...) Modicum of grace? Not exactly.

18. Speaking of grace, I finally, finally got that bouncy thing going in hip-hop. "That bouncy thing" is the technical term for the subtle difference between Dorky Dancing and Missy Elliot.

19. I did that bouncy thing over the past two weekends in public: eight full-house shows in front of a total of nearly 8,000 people, including, for the first time ever, my mother. It felt insanely good, and I will miss it terribly for the next month...but the dance school is now going to offer adult classes in the summer for the first time ever, because many of us are totally addicted to that bouncy thing.

20. My husband has resigned himself to the fact that Miss Demeanor's in da house, along with dudes like Justin Timberlake and Kanye West. We make up for it, though, with late-night name-that-ABBA-tune office karaoke. Also, we're going to see Rush in concert this summer for the third time, at which time we will sing at the top of our lungs, jump around wildly, and marvel at how even though Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson look truly old now, they still have the power and the talent to blow the audience away, every time. "Closer to the Heart" never fails to make me cry. Actually, so does "Red Barchetta." Leaves falling, a red convertible, and I am feeling seventeen, freewheeling, and way better looking than I actually was back then. And I can have a beer without lying about it. Also, the guy next to me is superhot, he knows all the words, AND he's my date AND he's staying. Doesn't get better than that.

21. I apparently have more than twenty things to say. How unlike me!

22. I miss you all terribly. I need a fiber fix, bad. I feel a quick and dirty knit extravaganza coming on. It probably will not be a sock, though. That damned 2.25mm dpn is the only thing between me and the end-of-day coma, dudes, so I'm afraid I can't spare it. Stay tuned for June's knit fix. And hopefully, this time, it won't make me look like a silk sausage or the loser of the Glitter Gladiator Smackdown.