Abandonment

You may have noticed it's been months since my last post, and it's time I just came out and said it. Wrinkled Though has progressively fallen to the bottom of my list of priorities. So much, in fact, that I've decided to abandon it altogether. Don't worry. I plan on leaving it up for nostalgia state, and undoubtedly I'll embark on another equally thrilling and compelling blog soon, but right now it's time to say good bye.

The End.

Happy 2008

I'm a little late, but my intentions were good nonetheless. I hope you have a wonderful 2008.

I love New Years Day. It feels so fresh.

Maybe I'll post my resolutions later.

December Poll

That last option said, "Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul" esque books. Philosophy/Religion appears to have won, which is ironic because I hate reading philosophy. I've only read the ancient stuff though so that could be an unfair representation of the genre.

Box-y Fingerless Gloves

I've recently taken up knitting. I really love it; it's a great creative outlet and quite therapeutic. It's something I plan on doing for a very long time. I just finished making these gloves. This is my second attempt at gloves. The first pair turned out massive, so I had to do some major altering to the pattern.

There are a ton of knitting blogs out there. I considered creating my own separate from Wrinkled Thought to show off my new skills, but I figured it'd just be easier to throw in some knitting posts into the mess I've already created.

Box-y Fingerless Gloves

Supplies

• 3.5/100g yarn
• A set (4) of size 7 double-pointed needles
• Scrap Yarn
• Stitch Markers (I just used some thread tied in a loop. Spending money on markers is unnecessary, but if you have them already they may come in handy.)

Directions

Hand:

1. Cast on 34 stitches over 3 needles. Needle 1: 17 stitches. Needle 2: 9 stitches. Needle 3: 8 stitches.
2. Knit 1, purl 1 for 6-ish rounds. You may want to make the ribbing longer or shorter, which is fine. It's up to you.
3. Knit 2 rounds.
4. Knit 1. Place marker. Insert stitch in bar from front to back. Knit 2. Insert stitch in bar from back to front. Place marker and finish round.
5. Knit 1 round. Repeat step four every other round until there are 10 stitches in between the markers.
6. Knit 2 rounds.
7. Knit 1. Place stitches between markers on scrap string. Cast on 2. Finish round.

8. Knit 5-ish more rounds. (If you have larger or smaller hands, adjust accordingly).
9. Work in knit 1, purl 1 for about 6-ish rounds.
10. 3-needle bind off. ?

Thumb

1. Put middle 4 stitches on scrap yarn on 1 needle. The remaining 6 stitches will go on the other two needs. Take one stitch for those two needles from the glove.
2. Knit 7-ish rounds. (Or until it matches the length of your thumb.)
3. Knit 2. Knit 2 together. ? Repeat till end of round.
4. Knit 1. Knit 2 together. Repeat till end or round.
5. Cut and thread through remaining stitches. Tie and finish.

Cap

1. Cast on 34 stitches over 3 needles. Needle 1: 17 stitches. Needle 2: 9 stitches. Needle 3: 8 stitches.
2. Purl 1 round.
3. Knit 14 rounds. (This may be longer or shorter. I have very stubby fingers, so you'll need to adjust accordingly.)
4. Needle 1: Knit 1. Slip, slip, knit ? (aka. decrease). Knit till there are 3 stitches left on needle. Knit 2 together. Knit 1.
5. Needle 2: Knit 1. Slip, slip, knit. Knit to end of needle.
6. Needle 3: Knit till 3 stitches left. Knit 2 together. Knit 1.
7. Knit 1 round.
8. Repeat steps 4-6 every other round till there are 13 stitches left on needle 1.
9. Knit one round.
10. 3-needle bind off.

Finish

1. Sew cap 2 or 3 stitches below ribbing on mitten.

Merry Christmas!

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas EVE

I love Christmas Eve. That's when we open our presents. Look what I got:

Books

• Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
• Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
• Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (I've actually already read this one, but I lost my copy and it's been missed very much.)
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Magazine Subscriptions

• Time
• Entertainment Weekly
• Knit 1
• Vogue Knitting
• Writer's Digest
• Rolling Stone

I've actually never subscribed to any magazines that weren't fashion: Vogue, Seventeen, etc., and I'm really excited about all this reading material that'll be coming on a very regular basis. Our school library has time, which makes a great distraction from what I should be focusing on. My best friend, Robin, always has the latest Entertainment at her house, always a highlight of our visits. The knitting magazines come with patterns and, thus, inspiration. That'll be fun.

The Golden Compass

It's a little late to be writing this post, but better late than never. The Golden Compass movie was fantastic. Fans of the book will not be disappointed, and that's saying something because I've never really liked a movie based off one of my favorite books. The film was so well done. The plot of the movie and the plot of the book were surprisingly the same, a rarity when it comes to transferring book to screen. The film makers did a great job of staying loyal to the Pullman's story, which makes me so happy because I love it just the way it was written. The Golden Compass definitely didn't need any spicing up. Another reason I hate based-off-book movies is because nothing is ever how I imagined it to be, but watching the movie was a pretty bizarre experience because I felt like I was watching my thoughts. Everything was perfect: the actors, the set, the costumes. I loved every bit of it.

If you're interested in reading the book, go check out the review I did last December.

Slaughterhouse-Five

"Bill Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." He has been captured by the Tralfamadores, time traveling extra terrestrials. While aboard the flying saucer, he journeys through various scenes from his his past. Many of these moments are reflections of Billy Pilgrim's experiences as a prisoner of war. He witnessed and was one of the few survivors bombing of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five is constructed similarly to the way the fictional Tralfamadores' books are made:

"...each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message—describing a situation, a scene."

Each of the scenes in Slaughterhouse-Five is rarely more than two pages long.

"We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep."

The book is not organized chronologically or, as far as I can tell, in any particular order at all. Although we can't read it all at once, because the timeline is so scrambled, it feels like you're swallowing it all whole. There is no doubt Slaughterhouse-Five is displays life as "beautiful and surprising and deep."

"There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects."

It's hard to imagine any novel with such qualities, but trust me, Vonnegut pulls it off in Slaughterhouse Five.

"What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time."

I believe this is the first story I've read that was simply a collection of "marvelous moments." Of course I've read stories that do not take place chronologically, but those novels were written in that fashion very purposefully. Those books typically had some type of mystery in which the main character must mentally or physically revisit past scenes to find clues, or the literal or figurative time travel was device the writer used to give more insight to the characters past to support the way they're current emotions, reactions, etc. Never have I read a book that feels this spontaneous.

Time Travel, aliens and the bombing of Dresden sounds like pretty serious stuff, but this book is hilarious. It falls under the genre black comedy—the story is horrific, but the tone is light hearted. Slaughterhouse-Five has been described as an anti-war novel. Few dare to satirize something as shocking as the bombing of Dresden. Vonnegut satirizes not only his experiences as a prisoner of war, but anything and everything. The contrasts in this book were particularly striking: death and humor, the fantasy of extra terrestrials and the reality of war, time travel and God.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a unique story, despite all the other war and science fiction novels out there. It's a very striking book that I'm sure I'll remember for a long time. I plan revisiting Billy Pilgrim's past myself again and again.

Kurt Vonnegut Ringtone

I'd really like to know exactly what they mean by "Kurt Vonnegut Ringtone." I'm fairly certain his popularity was from his success as a novelist, not a musician. Maybe the ringtone is a recording of some of his writing. That seems a little far fetched though. I clicked on the link. They wanted me to confess my cell phone number. I tried a fake one; it didn't work. I shall never know.

Best Books of 2007... not so much.

I was browsing amazon.com the other day trying to compose my Christmas list, when I came across a link reading, "The New York Times: Best Books of 2007." Naturally, I clicked on it. I've made countless decisions based on recomendations from The New York Times, but after reading their so-called list of best books, I'll never trust their word again.

The New York Times: Best Books of 2007

1. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
2. The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
3. Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson
4. Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris
5. Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
6. Out Stealing Horses: A Novel by Per Petterson
7. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
8. The Savage Detectives: A Novel by Roberto Bolano
9. The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History by Linda Colley
10. Man Gone Down: A Novel by Michael Thomas

I'm ashamed to admit I have not read any of these books. And to think I call myself a reader. I read some reviews on the above books, and they actually sound pretty good, but I still feel like something's missing from the list. I can't quite put my finger on it. Wasn't there some book that came out in 2007 that sold something like eleven million copies in the first day it was released? I think it was the final instalment in some best selling series, which has had five award winning movies. The author, thanks to her books, is a millionare. I seem to have forgotten about it. Looks as if it slipped The New York Times' mind as well. Gee, what was it called again? It's on the tip of my tongue.... Oh yeah! HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS! Hmm.... I wonder why The New York Times didn't think it was worthy of their little list. Maybe they thought nobody would notice. =)

Seriously now, whoever made this list should be sent to some other planet where nobody's heard of Harry Potter.

November Poll

That last one said "Write? You mean like homework?" It's nice to know my readers are smart cookies.