Weekend Update

The weekend started off right with a box sitting on my desk when I got to work. It was a package from my Special Swap pal, Leah:



There are two great sock patterns from Cherry Tree Hill and a skein of CTH sock yarn. Next to the yarn is a little pouch of Burt's Bees products for hands and feet - can definitely use that at this ultra-dry time of year (my skin is so dry that I've snapped two knitting needles scratching my back - yeah, I'm not too bright and did it again after the first time it happened). After I got the package, I already lotioned up my hands and rubbed in some of the cuticle cream. I also lit one of the candles that are right below that pouch. Hmmm... such a lovely thing to burn a nice candle at your desk and try to relax. Next to the candles are some package of tea. They are super cool - it's a little "tea cluster". You drop it in your boiling water and it unfolds to reveal a flower in the middle. Awesome! I had just gotten a big cup of coffee, otherwise I might have tried it out. I did however eat one of the chocolate sticks next to the tea. And it was delicious! At the very end is a very cute and whimsical sock bag - it looks like a bug! You can't tell in the picture, but that pink fabric is all glittery. The fabrics are just gorgeous and match the yarn quite well. Wanna see that yarn closer up? (Of course you do!)



Red is so hard to photograph. I absolutely ADORE that yarn! Thanks for a fantastic, very usable package, Leah. And thanks to Lynne for organizing another great swap!

Thursday was my nephew, Michael's, birthday, so we had a birthday party for him on Friday night at the Park at Mall of America (or the Camp Formerly Known as Snoopy, as I like to call it). They rode the rides, ate junk food and Michael got lots of presents, so I think he had a good time. Here's a few of them waiting for a ride:



Red asked if I would take him to see this movie on Saturday:



He really liked it. Me, not so much. There were some images that I really liked. The flaming skeleton was pretty cool. I'm a big Nic Cage fan and I liked him in this. The film is based on a comic book series. It's about a motorcycle stunt rider, Johnny Blaze, who makes a deal with the devil to save his father. He gives his soul to the devil and agrees to become the "Ghost Rider" - the devil's personal bounty hunter. Eva Mendes plays Johnny's true love, appearing in one after another low cut blouse. Her impressive cleavage notwithstanding, she was just dreadful. So wooden and stilted. The story was pretty standard - good vs. evil, be true to yourself type of stuff. Most of it doesn't make a lot of sense - everyone finds out that Johnny Blaze is Ghost Rider and yet once his big showdown happens, no one is looking for him or trying to get him to pay for all of the damage he's done to the town.

After the movie, the snow had begun, so I dropped off Red, headed home and didn't leave until Sunday night. I ripped out the Tofutsies sweater and came up with a different pattern - a raglan cardigan. I knit up all that I had knit before and more:



I'm knitting it all in one piece, which is why it doesn't look as big as the first back did. It's not knitting up in the same pattern, but I think this is ok too.

The snow fell and fell like crazy. Every time I let Fiona out, it was harder and harder to open the back door. Here's how she looked every time she came back in:



By Sunday we had about a foot of snow. Fiona managed to create a little path into the yard to "do her business", but she could easily have gotten lost in the snow:



My back is really sore from shoveling all of that heavy snow, so I've got a heating pad on it now. We're supposed to get more snow mid-week. Oh goody. I'm so glad I'm going on vacation next week!

Sunday night I did venture out to go to my friend's house for an Oscar party. This was a pretty low-key, kind of boring ceremony this year. I was really surprised Alan Arkin won over Eddie Murphy, but he was great in LMS too. I had no idea who was going to win Best Picture and although I would have voted for Letters from Iwo Jima, I thought The Departed was a really good movie too. I guess the one I was cheering for to win the most was Helen Mirren and I really had no doubt she was going to win, which took some of the excitement out of it. I loved that PBS showed Prime Suspect 6 against the Oscars. Overall, I think this was a really strong year for film. I still haven't posted my Top Ten list for 2006, but I'll do it soon.

FO!

Turning now to knitting news, I finished the BFF Socks:



Project Name: BFF Socks
Designer: Cookie
Pattern Source: Cookie's blog
Yarn: Fleece Artist Sock
Yarn Source: Katy - via Yarn Aboard!
Date Started: 1/16/07
Date Completed: 2/18/07

Comments: I really love this yarn and this pattern. I made the legs a little bit shorter, as is my custom. The Fleece Artist yarn was new to me, and I'd definitely like to get some more of it. It's lovely to look at and to feel. It also has held up fairly well - I was having major ball winder issues, so I ended up re-winding this skein of yarn probably about 4 or 5 times and 2 or 3 of those times, I had a big knotted mess on my hands. The yarn held up to all of that manipulation very well. Thanks, Katy, for introducing me to a great new yarn! Here's the obligatory sole-to-sole shot:



I've also been working on a baby blanket for my sister, in a Project Spectrum/Knit Blue color:



Finally, I'm about 2/3 of the way done with the sewing on the mitered square blanket. I'm definitely going to have to steam those seams when I'm done to get them to lay flat.

Oscar Week

This Sunday is the Oscars, so I'm doing my usual quick catch up on some of the nominees so I can see as many as possible before the awards are handed out. First up was Talk Cinema on Saturday, with this foreign film nominee:



Loved it. I don't want to say too much about it, because part of the real pleasure of the film mis watchng everything unfold and seeing how the events in the characters' lives change them. In fact, I'd avoid reading any reviews for this before you see it. After I see a film, I usually go and read the reviews and some of the reviews I read of this were very detailed and would have ruined it for me if I had read them before. So, in general, the film is set in 1984 in East Germany. A Stasi (E German Secret Police) officer is told to monitor a playwright who is in the good graces of the government, but one high ranking officer wants to know if he's really up to something, being an artist and all. The playwright lives with his girlfriend, an actress who plays the leads in his plays. The film works on several levels - it comments about privacy and government intrusion, but it is also more personal and about trying to change the world vs. changing yourself. It also is a damn fine thriller. This year I've seen 4 out of the 5 foreign film nominees and they're all really strong. This one might be my favorite. The talk part of Talk Cinema was a question and answer period with the director of the film. He's a pretty amazing man - only 33 years old and this is his first film. He both wrote and directed it. He's 6'9" and looks every bit the Aryan poster child. He was born in Germany, but lived part of his childhood in New York, so he speaks accentless English. He also studied philosophy in St. Petersburg, Russia. Brilliant man with some great comments about his film and film in general. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Sunday, I had the opportunity to see one of the Documentary nominees at the local documentary film theater:



The title of this film is really descriptive - it really does show small pieces of life in Iraq. The film is broken down into three parts - one follows a Sunni boy in Baghdad who works for a man he says is like a father to him. The man is in turns affectionate and cruel to the boy. The boy spends some days in school, where he doesn't seem to learn much, and some days working for the man, mostly listening to the man and his friends talk about the war and the Americans and their nostalgia for Saddam. The second part is about the Shiite followers of Moktada al Sadr, in southern Iraq. It shows their extremism - their self-flagellation, their rallies and their attacks on men in the market who are allegedly selling alcohol. I am amazed by the kind of access the director had. The final section shows a Kurdish family in northern Iraq. The Kurds are happy that Saddam is gone and are less angry at the Americans than the Sunnis and the Shia, but also seem to be growing weary of the occupation. After seeing the harsh conditions in both Baghdad and Sadr, nothern Iraq looks positively bucolic. For me, the film was interesting and informative and I did marvel at the documentarian's ability to have access to all three areas, but it left me a little cold. It was very impressionistic and was indeed just a fragment of time. I prefer more of a straight-forward narrative and storytelling. I also think my woeful lack of knowledge of the history of Iraq probably hurt me - nothing really is explained in the film, with the expectation that you already know who Moktada al Sadr is (I do generally, but not a lot) or what life was like in Iraq under Saddam for each of these groups or many other things. I can see why this film is admired and nominated, but I saw quite a few other documentaries this year that I liked better.

Just by coincidence, I also saw another documentary that is nominated this year on PBS later Sunday night:



This film is also about life in Iraq. This time, it's more of a straight story, focusing on the first elections after the war (remember with the purple figure showing you had voted?). It follows a physician in Baghdad who is on the city council and is running for election for the local governing body, from what I could tell. I wasn't exactly sure how the political structure is set up, but from what I could gather, he's already on the city council and wanted to be elected to what would be like the state legislature here. He's a Sunni and a member of the major Sunni party in Iraq. The film follows the process of the preparations for the elections by the U.S. military and the U.N. and an Australian contractor hired to provide election security in Northern Iraq. The doctor's daily life is also followed - you see him solving problems for his constituents as a city-council member, talking to U.S. military personnel about concerns with how the Sunnis are being treated, especially in Fallujah, investigating detentions at Abu Graib, etc. But you also see him caring for his patients as a doctor. At one point, his wife tells him he should give up politics - he can do more for his people as a doctor than as a politician. His party is debating whether to participate in the elections and he's a passionate advocate for participating and changing the system from within instead of boycotting the elections and being left out of the decision-making. I liked this one more, just because I did find myself really caring about this doctor and his family. It was interesting to see both films on the same day.

Yesterday I checked out this film, which I still hadn't seen:



I really wanted to see it before the ceremony because I'm pretty sure Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy are going to win. I hadn't seen it yet because I'm not a huge fan of musicals and I had heard mixed things about it. Overall, I'd say it was just ok. It's really gorgeous - fantastic costumes and some great scenes. The singing and dancing was really enjoyable. However, it all felt a bit much to me. It seemed to go on forever and ever. The characters seemed pretty one-dimensional to me. I did really enjoy Eddie Murphy's performance, although I really wanted more of him and his story. The big buzz is around Jennifer Hudson and I just wasn't blown away by her. Like she did on American Idol, I always feel like she's over-singing everything. Just my personal taste, I guess. I actually thought Beyonce's big number toward the end was more impactful than the Hudson centerpiece to the film. I actually really liked Jamie Foxx as the bad guy quite a bit too, as well as Keith Robinson as the songwriter for the group/Hudson's character's brother. Even so, I thought the writing was pretty marginal and I was somewhat embarrassed for Foxx at the very end - it just seemed so hokey, but I won't get into the details for those who haven't seen it yet. The music was ok - there were a few songs that I really liked, but I didn't think they were anywhere near as good as the real Motown sound.

Knit Out

Thank you to every who sent such fantastic messages about the mitered blanket. It really made my day to get such nice compliments. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the sewing. I really don't mind sewing things together, so it's not that bad. The worst part is just like in quilting - where the color changes meet up. I'm doing mattress stitch, so the two pieces are half a stitch apart - they match up stitch to stitch very nicely until you get to the end and have that one half stitch extra. I'm fudging it though.

I have a ton to blog about - it was a busy weekend with a couple of Oscar contending movies, some knitting, including an FO, and the Knit Out. I think I'll start with that since it'll get stale very quickly.

A few of the women in my Wednesday night knitting group started the day at Jun Bo for Dim Sum. It's Chinese New Year, so it was crazy busy, but we got there early and had a reservation. This restaurant is in the old Chi Chi's restaurant on Nicollet and 494, so it's huge. They serve Dim Sum all the time, not just on weekend mornings, but I'm not sure where it's quite as huge as it was on this Sunday morning. We had an unbelievable assortment of little treats to eat. I got my usual favorites - sesame balls, dumplings, buns. They were all delicious. If you're looking for a place to do dim sum, I'd recommend Jun Bo.

After dim sum, we headed over to the Mall of America for the Knit Out. The event is aimed at spreading the gospel of knit and crochet and I think it did well at that. The Learn to Knit and Learn to Crochet areas both seemed pretty busy. There were booths from the major craft store vendors, with some giveaways. Here's what I got:



Lion Brand was giving out the really big bag. They had color cards for all their yarns, too, which I really liked being able to see in person. I'm thinking about picking up some of the new Cottonease and haven't seen it in person yet. The Boa yarn I got at the Bernat booth and the Michael's booth. By coincidence I got the same color at both places, which is nice because there's plenty for a project. At the Clover booth I got a circular needle - size 15, which I don't use often, but I also don't have many needles that size. I can't remember where I got the two crochet hooks. One is purple, which I love. The other is huge - much bigger than any other hook I have. I got the needle sizer at the same booth as the big crochet hook - I think it may have been the TNNA booth. I also got tons of pattern leaflets. Some of them were cute, some of them a little too "crafty" if you know what I mean. There was a fashion show, narrated by Vicki Howell from Knitty Gritty. That woman is so very tiny. It's always amazing when you see tv/movie folks and realize how thin they are. I'm so glad I don't live in LA. Anyway, the fashion show was interesting. Again, some of the garments were a bit too "crafty", but there were some cute things as well. There were also little demos and authors signing books. Overall, it was a fun little excursion. I wish there had been more comfy seating and areas to just sit and knit. Hopefully we've added a few more knitters to our ranks this weekend, though.

And it begins

I've taken a step back from the Tofutsies sweater and I think I'm almost ready to rip it out and start over again. I think I'll just make a very plain cardigan using the Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. But, I'm going to set it aside for right now and make my sister a baby blanket first - then I'll go back to the sweater. By then my emotional attachment to the old sweater should have waned enough that I can rip, rip, rip.

I love Sweet Socks from the Sweet Sheep, so I joined the Project Spectrum sock club. I got the first skein yesterday and just love it:



Love that blue! The club is all semi-solids, which will be a nice addition to my sock yarn collection. I have a lot more multi-color yarns already.

I started seaming together the mitered square blanket. Here's the layout I came up with:



I already screwed it up, though. I accidentally rotated the middle square on the left edge. I think it should still be ok, though. I'm going to reference this layout picture when I'm doing the sewing from now on. If you see a square that really looks like it should be moved, let me know.

Math Challenged

I started another Project Spectrum blue/Knit Blue project yesterday:



It's a baby sweater for my sister in the Tofutsies yarn. I had planned to knit the hooded sweater in "Not Just Socks for Kids", but I eventually realized that I'm very math-challenged. I screwed up on what I thought I was supposed to get for gauge and what I actually was getting. I thought I was supposed to get 7.5 stitches per inch. I actually am getting 8 stitches per inch. I thought that was just fine, because the smallest size of the pattern is size 2 and I really wanted something the 12 - 18 month range, so I could knit it at the smaller gauge and adjust a little here and there and have a smaller sweater. But as I got to knitting, I realized that this really was more like 6-9 month size. That's when I looked at the pattern gauge again and realized I needed 6.5 stitches per inch, not 7.5. I'm such an idiot!

So, the question then became whether I wanted to continue this project at all. I really don't like knitting such small sweaters for babies because they grow out of them so fast. Some babies are even born bigger than the 6 month size, so they never wear them. On the other hand, I do really like this yarn and this gauge. The hand is very soft and it would be a nice little baby sweater. The color is a bit brighter than that picture - it's once again gray and cloudy around here.

I looked at all of my infant sweater patterns and I could easily change this into a pattern for a pullover with a collar I have. I also could just make it into a very simple pullover with drop sleeves. Hardly any math involved there. Or I could rip it out and knit something else that I would be happier about. I do only have one day into it. So either it's not that much to rip out or it really wouldn't take that long to finish the thing, so if it only gets a few uses, no big deal. Decisions, decisions.

I'm trying to catch some of the Oscar-nominated movies that I missed and was very glad that this was re-released:



Forest Whitaker seems to have the Oscar already secured for his performance in this film (although Peter O'Toole could steal it away). He does an amazing job as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. He perfectly captures both the charming, funny side of Amin and the brutal, menacing side as well. Even physically, he's able to at times seem just huge and imposing and other times light and quick. It's a great performance. I also loved the performance by James McAvoy as the young Scottish doctor who travels to Uganda to escape the expectations of his family and to have a bit of adventure and ends up as the person physician to Amin. I really liked the way he showed his character as so light and naive at first - just laughing and having a great time. He perfectly captured how the doctor is captivated by Amin - sometimes he gives him what I call "the Nancy Reagan" look - the look of complete and total adoration Nancy always gave Ronnie. Much, much too late he shows the doctor trying to convince himself that Amin is not that bad and justified in whatever measures he is "forced" to take and then finally being forced to face the rality of a dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of his people. I really enjoyed the story, though at times it was hard to watch. There are some pretty brutal scenes of violence.

Not Knitting

Talk Cinema yesterday and the film was this delightful French title:



As you might guess from the poster, this is an ensemble cast with a handful of stories woven together. It's charming and of course reminds me of "Amelie". Like that film, it shows Paris in its finest light and you want to leave the theater and head for the airport. It's being marketed in America under the title "Avenue Montaigne", but I think the French title is better - "Orchestra Seats". One of the characters talks about how when people go to a play, they try to get closer and closer and closer, until finally they end up in the front row, and then they can't see anything. That's sort of what the film is about - how people strive for some ideal of success, but what they truly want is what makes them happy.

The character at the center of the film is "Jessica", a young woman who has arrived in Paris from the country and talked her way into a job as a waitress at a cafe on Avenue Montaigne, across from the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She is hired even though no woman has ever been a server in the cafe, because they are facing the "perfect storm" of the restaurant business - in a few days there will be a play starring a famous tv star, a concert pianist's performance and a big art auction all at the same time. Jessica begins delivering food to these theaters and gets to know the famous tv star, the concert pianist and the man selling off his art collection. Each of these people is striving for happiness, trying to fix whatever isn't working in their lives.

This is basically a fairy tale, with everyone having a happy ending and things just falling into place, but I really enjoyed the film. The acting all around was really good. As I mentioned, the scenes of Paris are gorgeous. And the music played by the pianist through out the film is wonderful. The film was the French entry for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. It was a finalist, but did not get a nomination, probably because it is perceived as too light. This film will be shown again here in the Twin Cities at the Walker Art Center on March 3 as part of the Women With Vision Film Festival. You can also see the last Talk Cinema feature, Amazing Grace, for free at the Walker on this Tuesday night. I'd recommend both films.

I also finished this book yesterday:



I can't remember why I started reading the "Holiday Murder Series", but I've been keeping up with this series. There's one more that's been published that I haven't read, and I think that's the last in the series now. That may be for the best, as I think perhaps it's played itself out. For those unfamiliar with this series, the main character is an ex-nun who leaves the convent and returns to a small town in New York, where she finds herself solving murders that have happened on holidays. In the first book she was just out of the convent, adjusting to life "on the outside". Now she's a married woman with a child and a career as a part-time professor. I've enjoyed the series and following this character, but I knew who the murderer was in this book almost as soon as a clue was dropped. Even though I knew who committed the murder, I coudn't figure out why. Even when it was revealed, it still didn't really make that much sense to me. I'd say this one is for those who already read the series or die-hard mystery lovers.

All knitting content

For Project Spectrum this year, I'm going to do a project incorporating beads for each grouping. For February and March the colors are Blue, White and Gray. I decided to stick with blue again and made this bracelet:



This was a kit I bought from Earthfaire, using Kreinik Metallics Fine Braid thread in silver, medium sapphire AB leaf beads and CL sapphire beads in size 8/0. It is meant to be joined together into a bangle style of bracelet, but mine ended up too short, so I sewed the two ends to a metallic clasp, instead. I made my bracelet with 49 stitches instead of the 43 stitches called for in the pattern, but I also have pretty big wrists, so it was still too small. I bought a couple of other colors of this kit, so next time I'm going to use all of the leaves - I think there were 51 or so in this kit - and see if it's long enough.

I also finished knitting my last mitered square:



Now I just have to sew that one together and then start sewing all of the big squares together:



I wonder how long that's going to take me. This has been such a great, portable project. I'm really going to miss that aspect of it. I had a long car trip for work yesterday and while I couldn't knit on the way there, because I had a kid along with me, I could have knit on the way back, but I just didn't have time to grab my knitting. I've knit a few of these squares while on work road trips.

Yarn Acquisition

The other day I mentioned I bought some other sock yarn. I had originally intended to knit up one of these immediately for a PS/Knit Blue project, but now I'm quite taken with the idea of knitting the Tofutsies into a baby sweater, so I think I'll do that instead. But I need more Tofutsies. So, anyway, here's some new Jojoland yarn, which knits into a really cool graduating fabric:



and



I also got the February Sock of the Month yarn from Posh:



It's not a color of pink/red that I really like, so I'm thinking I may overdye it a darker color.

THAT should keep me busy for a while. One would think I now had reached the point where I really didn't need to buy more yarn. But one would be wrong. I have more yarn winging it's way to me. I also bought some yarn last fall that I never took pictures of and showed you. It's my "rule" that I must confess all yarn purchases before putting them into stash - it's my own attempt to shame myself into not buying more yarn. I've kept this yarn sitting on my couch for months so that I wouldn't have to own up to buying it. And that's the way it's going to stay for JUST a little longer.

That was fun!

I had such a blast watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. Since the little man playing Purple Rain on a purple guitar is probably the closest I'm ever going to come to seeing the Vikings in the Super Bowl, I was really excited about the Colts. Like everyone, I was a bit worried when Hester ran it back for a TD on the kick off, but from then on, things looked up. We went to a local bar and there seemed to be more Bears fans around. We were right next to another table of Colts fans and one guy was nice enough to buy us drinks, since we were in it together. I brought some knitting just in case it was a blow out, but I never took it out after I put it away during the national anthem.

Still in the football spirit, I finished up my soon to be nephew's hat last night:



Project Name: Football hat
Designer: Susan B. Anderson
Pattern Source: Itty Bitty Hats
Yarn: GGH Samoa
Yarn Source: Zandy's
Date Started: 1/29/07
Date Completed: 2/5/07

Comments: I bought the yarn for this during the 2006 Treasure Hunt.
The tan I bought to make the football was way too light (what was I thinking?) so I ended up using some Tahki Cotton Classic left over from the mitered square blanket. For those who aren't familiar with football, the hat is shaped like the old-fashioned leather football helmets used to be.

I also saw a movie this weekend:



I really didn't care for this movie. As I've mentioned before, I'm really not comfortable with the portrayal of adults having sex with teenagers, which I knew was part of this film - the scandal in the title. I thought it would only be a very small part and wouldn't bother me, but it did. It also just seemed really over the top and lurid to me. Cate Blanchett plays a new art teacher who catches the eye of almost everyone in the school. Judi Dench is the veteran teacher who helps out the struggling novice, befriends her and falls in love and becomes totally obsessed. Blanchett begins a sexual relationship with one of her students, I guess because she's bored with her older husband (played by Bill Nighy) and children. At first Dench is enraged when she finds out about this relationship, because she sees it as a betrayal of her own relationship with Blanchett, but then she realizes she can use this information to manipulate Blanchett. This is one of those films where you know pretty much everything about it if you've seen the previews. So there were very few surprises for me. A lot of it didn't make a whole lot of sense, logically. I also really thought both Dench and Blanchett were over the top in their acting, though both are nominated for Academy Awards. There's one moment in particular when Blanchett is confronting the press where I really thought she went too far and I had to roll my eyes. The film has gotten some great reviews, so obviously others have enjoyed it far more than I did, but both my friend and I thought it was silly.

February already?

Didn't January go fast? It seems like it was just Christmas. One month into my resolution to stick wthin my budget and it's a mixed bag. I did very well in keeping track of all of my spending. I did ok in keeping within my budget in some categories and not so ok in others. Not surprisingly, my craft supplies were one thing I was way over budget on. I did apply some credits from some categories that I had money left over to others, so I'm not starting the month already over budget in most of my categories. We'll see how I'm doing at the end of this month.

Here are some of my budget-busting purchases. My friend Kerry went to the Madrona Fiber Festival and I had her bring me back a skein of Socks that Rock:



She did an awesome job in choosing a colorway - I love this one!!! She also brought me back a present - some great glass stitch markers. Despite dozens of tries to get a good picture of them, I just couldn't get one that wasn't totally blurry. They're fantastic, though.

I also did a little shopping of my own. I had to try out the new Tofutsies yarn:



I may make something for my soon to be nephew with that yarn instead of socks, but I haven't decided for sure yet. I also bought some other yarn, but I think I'm going to use at least one of those to knit something for Project Spectrum, so I'll wait until later to show you that. Aren't you all tingly with anticipation?

Project Spectrum started yesterday and I mentioned before that I'm going to concentrate on making socks for PS this year. I also decided to do knitting with beads as well. I did bead projects last year, but I think I'll try to use up some of my bead knitting kits this year. Since I'm still working on the BFF socks (which are partly blue, so count as PS knitting), but I still wanted to start something new to kick off PS, I decided to make a little hat for my soon to be nephew:



I've been invited to a baby shower for my sister at the end of the month, so I need to get knitting for a few gifts. I'm really excited to be doing PS again - it was really inspirational last time.

OK, I migrated over to the new Blogger today and originally posted this and it was all screwed up. So far I hate the new Blogger. Let's try this again.