Things that I think are cool today

But, remember, I am a dork, so these might not really be cool....

• The new log cabin blanket - Buncha Squares - from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I must do this immediately. I'm going to start plotting out the yarn tonight during drop-in at Webs. I really shouldn't start it with all the other projects I have in the works, but maybe if I only do one square a week?

• Tricks for making the perfect popcorn.

• Tom Robbins. I'm thinking of rereading Still Life With Woodpecker (and maybe all the others). I recently read a quote taken from the book that got me thinking about it again. His writing runs the gamut from hysterical quips, to lovable nonsense, to philosophical uber-wisdom. He's basically brilliant and, if you haven't read him, you must. Here are a few choice quotes from Still Life:

"She lunched on papaya poo poo or mango mu mu or some other fruity foo foo bursting with overripe tropican vowels."

"He looked at her with that kind of painted-on seriousness that comedians shift into when they get their chance to play Hamlet."

"I'll follow him to the ends of the earth," she sobbed. Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that."

"Funny how we think of romance as always involving two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense."

"'It's only a paper moon/Sailing over a cardboard sea.' The moon can't help it if the best toys are made of paper. And the best metaphors made of chesse."

"There are only two mantras... yum and yuk. Mine is yum."

"Who knows how to make love stay? Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning."

See? (thanks Wikiquote)

• Melissa doing canning on her grill. Cool.

• And this? This is the coolest thing. Ever.