No WoW Wednesday

Because my classes are in the evenings, I tend to go to sleep late, wake up late, and play a lot of video games. I've been playing World of Warcraft with some dear friends since the game started in 2004, and it's really easy to just log in for a minute or two and get sucked into several hours of laughing and pwning with a group of buddies.

Thus I have dubbed today "No WoW Wednesday." Well, today and every other Wednesday. While I don't log in every day - or even every other day - having a specific day seems to keep me more motivated to do other things.

I've also started logging off when my 9-5 friends do instead of staying up with the late night crowd. That means I'm out by 10 or 10:30 and have an hour or two to listen to audiobooks and knit. It used to be that I would either knit or play WoW in a day, but now I manage to do both.

Time management is not my strong suit, can you tell?

Anyway, since I added 4.7 MILES of yarn to my yearly total at Stitches 2010 I've felt a little pressure to start chipping away at the Stash Equilibrium Goal, and by default also at the 12-Mile Quest. Thus I present my Peasant Rib Socks:

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in "Ashburn" and "Chocolate"
243 yds total

This is the first time I've tried anything like this. I've made peasant heel socks before, but the pull across my instep in a way that heel flap socks don't. I'm messing with a way to make peasant heel socks that also have a heel flap to give my high arches the ease they need:

It's relatively successful. However, these are only 56-stitch socks, and I don't really like the way they are so stretched on my leg. I'm debating either a smaller needle/larger cast-on combo, or perhaps a 60-stitch cast-on and then decreasing down to 56 stitches after the heel. I think I'll try both. Additionally, I think I'm going to knit with the extra picked up stitches for 1/2" or so before I start to decrease. (At this point, the non-knitters are rolling their eyes and the knitters are nodding in agreement. Such is the lot of those not involved in our obsessive, math-oriented hobby!)

What I really like is the contrasting heel/toe, especially because the peasant heel construction allows for replacement. I don't wear through my socks very quickly, but I like the option of replacing the heels should I snag them on an unfriendly shoe. And because my feet are fairly small - a 37 EU/7.5 US - I actually managed to squeeze this pair out of ONE skein of the main color sock yarn. That means that with a little tweaking, I could reliably get two pairs of plain socks out of 100g of yarn plus the contrasting color, leaving me with very few leftovers. The perfectionist in me is utterly pleased by this potential development.

In other news, THB and I watched The Informant last night. I thought a lot about this movie afterward and came up with a few notes:

• Matt Damon is a fantastic actor, but why would he be cast as the anti-Jason Bourne? I didn't believe for a second that he was a bumbling FBI informant, having seen him kick ass and take names across 3 movies and like 12 continents.
  
• Actors playing liars have a huge task in front of them. We already know they're playing a part, so their job is two-fold: we must buy that the actor is the character and that the character is telling the truth, otherwise the Grand Reveal at the end is all for naught.
  
• If a script doesn't allow the actor time to draw the audience into the world of the con man, then the Grand Reveal is also all for naught.
• Buster will always be Buster, and Biff will always be Biff, and it's really tough for me to take either of them seriously.
• The music and comedic timing of this movie is brilliant. Damon's voiceovers are hilarious, and the 60's-style location splashes made me smile.
  

Next up is Brigadoon (1954), in Cinemascope no less.