The Drinking Games

Mar 3

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a_olympics_alcohol_0226If 150,000 revelers in Robson Square drank three beers per day each of the 17 days of the games, how much would the empties, at 10 cents each, be worth?

$765,000, that’s how much.

Now, if the 26 million Canadians who tuned in for the gold medal hockey final each drank three beers, their empties would be worth $15,600,000. That’s more than the GDP of some third- and even second-world nations.

It’s true: nobody throws a party like Canada.  TIME magazine’s Sean Gregory wrote a sublime article on how Canada has emerged as the world’s supreme (beer) garden of earthly and Dionysian delight. Some choice excerpts include:

Ford’s hotel is near Granville Street, close enough for her to hear the “Can-a-da, Can-a-da” shouts at 3 a.m. “It’s been a two-week tailgate,” she said. “I’ve covered a lot of college football, and this is like the Dante’s Inferno version of tailgating.”

Beaudry takes GOLD in knitting games!

Mar 2

Posted by Morgan in News from the Motherland | 2 Comments

hockey cardOh. My. God.

As it turns out, I am a medalist after all! Yes! My two-part effort was to knit six hats for Israeli Defence Forces soldiers and to dye and spin a pound of silk. Since I was still spinning when the torch was put out, I thought my medal dreams would have to wait until 2014. BUT, as it turns out, completing the six hats does earn me gold; I just don’t get to double-medal since I flamed out on the spinning.

I’d like to thank Ed, who had to vacuum and clean up around me for 17 straight days and who fed cats, cleaned litter boxes, cleaned up cat puke and didn’t complain once about my idleness during the games.

Double Gold for Pink Vegan!

Double Gold for Pink Vegan!

I’d like to thank my sponsors, the Badass Fibre Posse and the Secret Society for the Propogation of Fibre Pornography. You were with me every stitch of the way. Big love and congrats to Pink Vegan of Fibre Porn, who double medalled in these games. You are my hero.  Raise the broccoli high!

City Councillor Louis Brown and Congretational Leader Jeremy Parnes model two IDF hats.

City Councillor Louis Brown and Congretation Leader Jeremy Parnes model two IDF hats.

Thank too to my mom and our friend EV, for their stories, encouragement and humour, and to Mary Vallis of the National Post for her excellent media coverage of the 2010 Knitting Olympics.

Special thanks to Tim Hortons for the excellent coffee, the fuel of champion knitters everywhere.

Knitting Olympics – The Last Hurrah Feb 26 to Feb 28

Mar 1

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Knitting Podium

Alas, I will not get my gold. I’d love to blame equipment failures but sadly, I strategized very poorly and put my efforts into a bonus project instead of my core projects. My gold medal goal was to knit 6 hats and spin 1/2 lb of silk. The hats are done; 50 grams of silk was spun by the time the cauldron was extinguished, or about 200 gs short of the gold. To sum up:

Friday Day 15: Third hat done, fourth started.  Second batch of silk dyed; two skeins silver and one gold. Rebel reminds me Purim is Sunday. Shit. No costume. Wait; Ed plays hockey. Gear bag smells like it’s full of dead otters. Febreeze-fest. Ed most amused.

Saturday Day 16: Complete fourth, start and finish fifth, start and nearly finish sixth and final hat. Too tired to knit; weave in ends until late; nap until 6 a.m. wake-up call for weekly Tim Horton’s knit session.

Knitting the final hat at Purim celebrations

Knitting the final hat at Purim celebrations

Sunday – Last Day: Tim Knit 8 until 10, rush home, get helped into gear. Take knitting to Purim festival not caring how ridiculous I look as I sit there knitting in full hockey gear (minus skates). Failed to win prize at Purim pageant but did finish the sixth hat by the end of the party. Synagogue AGM booked for 2 p.m. Today. ARE YOU CRAZY? Half of attendees watching game live on iPhone anyway. After two periods, Canada is up 2 goals and the most agree-able, hurry-up-and-pass-everything-without-discussion AGM of all time adjourns after record brevity. Rush home to spin gold silk out of true patriot love for the Canada’s team. The OT goal by Crosby ends the tension, relief washes over a grateful, giddy nation.

Sunday — Closing Ceremonies
“Giant beavers. Flying moose. Mounties. Lumberjacks. Go to bathroom. Open medicine cabinet. Ingest.”  So Tweeted the most excellent and amazing Craig Silverman, author of Mafia Boy, Regret the Error and a personal hero of mine.

I’ve never dropped acid but I imagine the closing ceremonies are what I might experience if I’d had. As with the opening ceremony, it started off well enough and then got downright odd before descending into garage-party fare.

“Why the hell couldn’t we have done something as cool, as creative and beautiful as what the city hosting the next games — you know, the one with the name that sounds like a breakfast cereal — did? That was genius,” I lamented to Ed.

A wet, unhappy Wayne goes for a ride

A wet, unhappy Wayne goes for a ride

“Ah….but you’re forgetting about Gretzky’s truck ride.”

Ooooh, that’s true; that did give Canadians something to talk about for DAYS. No spectacle, no artistry, no pageant 10 years in the planning could ever have conceived The Great One’s ride to glory. As we watched him stand in pick-up bed being mobbed by drunks as the flame convoy moved at a crawl toward the barricaded torch site at the harbour, I swear I felt something in that moment I may never feel again.

It will indeed be damned difficult for the Russians to best us in this regard. Sure, it’s fine to tantalize us with magical scenes, dazzling snow princesses, ice-dancers skating on the edge of the sea, the world’s finest symphony and the greatest ever ballet. So what? Big deal! At their opening ceremony, unless they send Ovechkin on horseback through a sea of vodka-saturated comrades to broach a razor-wire barricade surrounding a cauldron shaped like Sputnik, they can’t hope to topple our final torch run achievement.

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Knitting Olympics — Feb 25 Day 13 (maybe, I’ve lost track)

Feb 25

Posted by Morgan in News from the Motherland | 2 Comments

Looks okay, no?

Looks okay, no?

So damned close to finishing that third hat! Was very tired last night; had to get  up at 3 a.m. to make it to outta-town meetings three hours away, then drove back and worked til the regular quitting time. Did about four inches then flaked out for some much needed nap-time.

Jar-dyed silk looks nice, no? I think it turned out just dandy.  There’s two colours here; both were an attempt at bronze but I think I’ll call them Creamsicle and Brown Sugar instead. Both involve three colours of dye. If you want to try this at home, buy some Jacquard dyes, some small popsicle sticks, and a jug of white vinegar.

For Creamsicle, I used one popsicle tip (four mm deep by about 3 mm high of dry dye powder on the end of the stick) of Aztec Gold, Salmon Pink and one tiny tip (one mm) of Sapphire Blue. It was pretty orangey so I adjusted: the formula for Brown Sugar is one tip each Aztec Gold and Bright Pink and one tiny tip of Navy Blue.

When the dye was exhausted (and you know this because all the water in the jar is clear) I re-mixed second baths for each colour and re-nuked them. I was hoping to make the colour richer and saturate the white silk missed on the first bath but I was still left with a bit of white — meh, it looks fine.

Will try next two skeins silver tonight and leave some silk for dying gold. Anyone who wants some of this stuff need only call, write or comment; I’m happy to share.

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“I’ll just add a little vinegar now and……” KaBOOM!

Feb 24

Posted by Morgan in News from the Motherland | 1 Comment

Like a bomb, but with more damage I swear

Like a bomb, but with more damage I swear

Holy hopping hemorroids, I got the scare of my life last night while getting my dying stuff ready. Yes, dying didn’t go quite as expected due to yet ANOTHER massive equipment failure.

I use what I thought was a stove-top safe Pyrex bowl for dying wool and silk. I’ve used my big bowl, like, five or six times. I put it on the burner, get the water hot (but not boiling), add vinegar and dye, add pre-soaked roving then ta-da, awesome results.

Last night, however, was not awesome. While adding the vinegar to water that wasn’t even all that warm yet, the bowl went kaPOW — like an IED or something — propelling glass shards and tepid vinegar water as far as six feet away in all directions.

PSA
As it turns out, there are literally DOZENs of complaints about this phenomena, not involving misuse (like using it on the stovetop apparently). Most complaints contain descriptions like  ‘exploded for no reason…’, ‘pasta exploding in one’s face…’, ’shards burning holes in my linoleum etc’, ‘Thank God I was wearing a turtle-neck sweater…’ and ’still finding pieces of glass weeks later…’ and so on. This also applies to Pyrex measuring cups, casseroles, muffin pans — basically all the Pyrex you own is dangerous and may try and kill you. Read gripping, breathless tales of Pyrex-related fear and loathing on ConsumerAffairs.com.

Anyway, back to the story….I just about pee’d myself I was so freaked; Ed was washing dishes at the sink two feet away and I think he just about pee’d himself in fear of what all this water and glass might do to the laminate he so painstakingly installed two years ago.

After about an hour of mopping up, gathering glass, shaking out mats, vacuuming, moving the stove to get all the water underneath it, and then vacuuming again, the kitchen was back to normal but I was in a pickle; what to do with the silk I’d already pre-soaked? It’s not like I can put it in the fridge over night. I considered throwing the 150 gs of silk into a microwave-safe (or so I assume — not sure about anything now) casserole dish with water but with my luck, the weight would rip the nuker free of its mount and bring it crashing down onto the already much-maligned stove.

Every dyed with Classico Spaghetti Sauce jars? Try it sometime. Mix dye, 1/2 jar water water, and vinegar (an ounce, maybe two) or enough so that the jar is about 2/3 full. Squeeze water out of pre-soaked silk and stuff it into the jar. Throw into nuker for 3 mins on half power. Remove, repeat as necessary, one 40 or 50g wad ‘o silk per jar at a time.

Seriously, this didn’t turn out half bad. Sure, I didn’t get exactly the bronze I was aiming for but I like it anyway so whatever! There’s some undyed spots too, but this I think adds interest to the yarn, makes it all artisan-y and bohemian.  I’ll shoot pics of the my results and post them later.

Knitting Olympic news: Didn’t knit last night as I had to be up at 3 a.m. today to travel for work and thus needed extra nap time last night. I’ll be good, I’ll get’ er done, no worries. Well, the hats and silk for sure — The Jack Ryan Sweater was a bonus project and not officially registered as a required element to get my medal.  Thank God, too; that thing is going to kill me. Small yarn, small needles = forever to finish. Finish I will but sure as hell not this month.

Gotta run; the puppies are tear-assing around making the cutest sounds – somewhere between a bark and a grunt and a growl — ever. Must. Watch. The puppies.

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Best. Timewaster. EVAR.

Feb 23

Posted by Morgan in News from the Motherland | Comments off

shiba-inu-puppyc2a0camWhen I hear strange barking and soft yips emanating from a neighbouring office, I don’t think much of it. I mean, this is the IT industry after all; barking, yipping, growling and even messing on the carpet is just what happens on your average Tuesday.

There’s nothing average or strange about this though. This is Shiba Inu Puppy Cam. I guarantee you that once you start watching you will not be able to find the will to stop. You’ll be like those vacant eyed pensioners wearing Crocs and Depends at the casino, fixed in place and fixated for hours on end. If Shiba’s don’t do it for you, please tune into baby bulldog cam. If neither does it for you, you are emotionally dead inside.

Puppy cam is a real-time peep-fest where more than 13,000 people watch and wonder at the minutae of puppy life.  This is as or more addictive than Cheezies laced with crack cocaine. My colleague probably spends upwards of four hours per day watching, and with no fewer than three or four other staff crowded behind her chair, rapt and watching, completely breathless.

Oh yeah….and turn the volume down while watching Shiba Inu Puppy Cam. Those yips are piercing and really, surprisingly loud. How bad do you want to get busted watching streaming video of puppies at your government job, anyway? Think about it.

Knitting Olympics – Feb 23 Day 11

Feb 23

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Ice out yer knits!

Ice out yer knits!

Got another hat started, and should be able to finish it tonight thus leaving me three to go. I’m taking my bling bling knit rings for a test drive. So far so wonderful, no snags and easy to pass from needle to needle. By jove, I think I’m onto something here. My WIPs will never be naked (or unfashionable) again! I’m using them to mark the halfway point on the soldier hats which are knitted in the round. Cool, no?

While I’m knitting I’ll have the dye pots a cookin’ in the kitchen. I’m thinking silver and bronze would be nice to try and create, nu? Gold is too easy — you can buy gold dyes. What I’m trying to do is custom mix these colours from other colours. This is my favourite part of dying, just seeing what the hell happens next. It’s also the worst part; you create a genius colour and have no idea how to create it again. And when you do, it’s never really quite the same. Like the sweet denim colour I totally nailed in January. It was a dye pot uber-oops — how the hell am I supposed to know you can just give silk a two-minute soak and expect it to be wet all the way through? Huh? HUH! The accident created uneven striations of blue grey and white which when spun prodused the purdiest denim blue ever. And of course I haven’t been able to repeat with the exact same result. Ah well…we’ll see what happens tonight.

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Knitting Olympics — Day whatever

Feb 22

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Two IDF hats: done

Sweater: in progress

Silk: to be dyed tomorrow.

too busy to post today

i must leave at once i can see the parking ticket guy closing in my expired metre ahhhh….!!!!

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Knitting Olypmics: Feb 19 — Day 8

Feb 19

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My cousin Dave and his wife Lorraine over-nighted in Regina last night on their way to a wedding in Canmore Alberta so I took the night off from all things knitting. Okay, there was one brief spinning demo (Dave and Lorraine were fascinated by Majacraft wheel) but that was it.

I probably needed a night off. Flexing my wrist back or forward produces not inconsiderable forearm pain. Going forward, I’m going to tensor the right hand and wrist and ice every two hours.

Casting on for the body of the sweater is slated for 6 p.m. tonight and from now until the end of the games, my knitting will be a constant companion. I plan to take it to a meeting I have tonight at 8 p.m., a meeting tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and all social engagements, dental appointments and trips to the vet scheduled for next week.

Saturday night will be the first of two scheduled knit-all-night sessions, the second being Thursday as Friday is my bi-monthly earned day off (EDO). Wish me luck…and insomnia.

Clarification — Not that Brian Williams, the other one:
When I say that Brian Williams is an complete ass let it be clear that I am referring to the CANADIAN sportscaster and NOT NBC’s Brian Williams. NBC’s Williams is excellent; he’s professional, knowledgable and credible — all things the other Brian is not.  I’ll never forget Cdn. Williams’s 1996 interview at the Atlanta Games with Donovan Bailey and the men’s 4 x 100 relay team. Right out of the blue, Williams steers the conversation away from the team’s silver-medal performance and into the journalistic weeds:

Williams: “May I just say that you’re all so….articulate!”
Bailey: “Well, we have had formal educations, Brian….”
Wow, dude. Awkward.

Ed and I have officially switched to watching any coverage BUT CTV’s. Switching errors, showing the wrong interview, showing  an 8 – 0 hockey game (quite the nailbiter!) over the men’s figure skating short program and my personal favourite, a 60-second montage in slow-mo of some guy drinking from a water bottle, are just too much. I’ve never seen such regretable coverage and I hope and pray CBC gets it back on day. Like tomorrow.

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Thank you Mary Vallis of the National Post!

Feb 19

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Stand up and represent for the National Post! Mary Vallis was kind enough to interview me for a rare, non-sports related Olympic story on the phenom of the Knitting Olympics.  The story is in today’s edition of the National Post, or click this link to read it online.

A big shout-out too to everyone knitting their patriotic hearts out during the games. So many others — certainly more deserving of an interview than I — are passionately knitting  in the Olympic spirit of peace and unity.  It’s wonderful to see this aspect of the games in the spotlight!

The only downside? I HAVE to finish EVERYTHING or I’ll never be able to face by BFFFs again.  I forecast more Red Bull and very little sleep over the next 10 days.

Knit Free or Dye