Saturday, March 26, 2005

Bondage fairies and wooly dreams


Ever get on those cleaning jags where you didn't mean to clean your desk (finally) and go thru ages of tucked away papers and things you obviously don't need anymore since you haven't looked at them in the past six months but you keep on hanging on to them for fear that you may still need those delivery confirmation slips from the post office a few more years down the line...

Anyhow, found a bunch of stuff I used ot love but am indifferent to now, but I can't bear to get rid of for nostalgia's sake. (FF--> 20 years from now aK lives in a huge room full of papers and porn vhs' since they remind her of the good old days... eventually burned down as one of the numerous cats somehow caught fire and took the room down with her...)

The biggest thing I can't bear to keep and can't bear to get rid of, my Bondage Fairies comics. See, I'm not one to buy a comic like this to ... be a means to an end ... but I honestly enjoy being excited by this weird weird anthro stuff that if were human I would wretch at. At least I used to be. I mean, not an addict or anything, but every time I'd walk by Comic Relief (when it used to be on University! Now they moved downtown, nice... the Kress bldg on Shattuck Ave) I'd pop in the the back and see if there were any ones that I was looking for (like a continuation of a series I didn't have-- I always bought them piecemeal and as back issues, so I have a bunch of non-connectors, not that there's a general plot structure to the entire series or anything.) Nice collection, I mean for someone who doesn't collect them and has a very hard time holding onto magazines for any period of time.

I want to throw them away, since well they're not really much of my bag anymore. I have this weird guilt thing about it, in that this anthro porn stuff is always violent to "women" characters and I think that really shouldn't float my boat. But I can't ... I mean, I can't since I'd just hate to pitch them, you know? After all that time being able to preserve them til now! (Says the packrat... argh, I think I do have a problem!)



On a lighter note, I finished Shogun today knitting up a storm in malabrigo and singing the patternsong kate gilbert wrote, clapotis. I can't even start to say what fun this pattern is for me, I always find myself hinking up patterns since they don't make sense to my mind (but following them exactly will result in the perfect product). I guess as I can't "see" the reasoning behind patterns, my mind has a hard time recognizing when I make mistakes.

But not so with clapotis! The simple "k tbl before marker, k, k tbl after marker" pattern is so perfect and I find myself so excited to see the twisted k tbl stitches making waves in the stockingette already:



Can you see them? The little columns of puffy stitches... I didn't quite understand how clapotis would work til I started knitting it, and I have to say that its muy brillig, truly. I'm also loving to use my little stitch markers-- I made them out of a bunch of glass beads and beading wire I had left over from my attempt to put together a scrapbook-- I'm going to need more (17 total), I think I originally made 20 but some are hanging out on projects I have on needles but haven't worked on in ages (time to consider ripping or finishing and being honest with myself!)

I also decided to not ball up the malabrigo into a ball, since I'm only handwinding them anyway and they've just turned into a mess every freaking ball I try to handwind. Evenutally I'll break down and buy a ball winder (I dunno! I just keep thinking that I'm not the class of knitters who needs a ballwinder-- though if I do keep my promise to myself for another 20 skeins !!! of the malabrigo for winter wear, I *will* need one!)... For now it's simply pleasurable to knit from the hank draped across my knees.



I'm in the middle of the 3rd inc repeat (12+1 total) here.

The malabrigo is really lovely stuff, I can't help squeezing it on the hank and petting the knitted clapotis-to-be (clap-oh-TEE kate reminds us, hooked on phonics worked for me)... I only want to knit with soft one ply like this from now on! It's addictive stuff (more than the BF ever were!). The hand is so nice, after hours of knitting it felt like I had pet a kitten curled on my lap sleeping for an hour or three, the way the top layer of skin on your palm tingles after rubbing it on something soft for a long period of time.

Back to the knitting grind :)

aK
rel="tag">gamesgrid

3:11:20 PM  
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End of the line: North Dakota
(with no complications, fifteen generations...)


Ah, poor North Dakota denziens. The last hope for online poker in NoDak failed again today 44-3... House Res 3035 attempted to add the following to its state constitution:

"The legislative assembly shall authorize the
establishment of internet live poker establishments.
The internet live poker establishments must be located
in the state and licensed and regulated by the state."

Now, I'm all for the idea that our elected officials start to actually TRY and mirror the constituency they represent, and though Kasper was more interested in money for NoDak (can't blame him!) it is honest to say his resolution and bill would mirror the growing trend and acceptance within NorAm society of online gambling, specifically poker... Following the direction of your citizenry is always better than following that of some religious or political pressure...

But.

I always get really wary of the idea of altering a constitution for anything. Specifically the US Constitution, but the concept trickles down to the states... Constitutions are the most inviolate pieces of law we hold and to bastardize them by inserting little schema that seem to detract from the gravity of civil rights and the layout of the political power of the state just... doesn't sit right with me. I'm not saying I don't support the change of the current NoDak constitution (pdf), that's not up to me. But, I guess it's not up to the voters anymore, either.

Folliwing the yellow brick road of politics and poker, here's an article from the UK that says the gambling bill (which would lift the cap restriction of eight on the number of casinos within a region-- and in turn supposedly online casino ops would flock to the UK to invest ad settle in for a nice winters nap) will likely *not* pass die to time constraints.

Maybe its a good thing for the industry to keep moving within respectable (monied) circles like the London Stock Exchange. The thing I fear is how much US policy flies again in the face of world policy and mores, directed by the heavy historical hand of our puritan backgrounds. I refuse to believe that the people in the UK, who have been embracing poker not just as players but also in recognizing it in the political arena, are any less "moral" than their American counterparts... and yet their political and social society embraces poker (while out political members shun it).

We have this stifle being placed, an ugly juxtasposition of public view and political drive. Reading, listening, watching-- a good chunk of our culture represented by and in the media looks favorably on the game of poker. Then we have the politicos, driven by the moralita policia, dampening down or trying to abate the desires of those who elected them. The doj sends out "warning" letters to media outlets saying they could be charged with aiding and abetting federal offenses by carrying *advertising* for gambling sites, and I'm hard pressed to dismiss the fact it is a moral agenda that does not reflect the general temor in the nation in regards to poker. I wonder if the NoDak Senate is working to reflect the desires of its citizenry or its stance on a moral/political issue (as opposed to a representative one)? I really don't know-- I'd like to know what NoDak people thought about it.

You can see some of the senators' reasoning for rejecting the less stringent bill here-- and note that the letter the doj sent to NoDak's atty general in regards to online poker did have a dampening effect on some senate votes.

aK
rel="tag">gamesgrid

1:44:19 AM  
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