And Now For Something Completely Different

Man, so I've been too busy futzing around on IMDB and NOT reading Bleak House, which I need to finish by tomorrow (I've got 180 pages left, and there's Sparknotes, so I'm not entirely worried) that I've somehow NOT been knitting. Which makes me very sad. My yarn for the rest of the Ruffled Surplice (as well as knittyknitter's top-down raglan, Stitchdiva's Sahara, and red TLC Cotton Plus with an undetermined purpose--Joann.com was having a sale, and how can you go wrong with 30% every skein of yarn?! I should have bought some of that expensive yet pretty sometimes Moonlight Mohair) came yesterday, but since I don't know how packages work in my new apartment, they TOOK IT AWAY, leaving one of those UPS stickers that says they'll be back today, and I can only assume it will be at the same time. If it isn't, I have to give a lot of people a stern talking-to, such as UPS and my unreachable RAs. I would probably be a good RA since I'm always AROUND.

But anyway, aside from my runaway yarn, there's not much in knitting news. I'm thinking about waiting until it gets cold to finish my Alexandra top (it's 97 degrees here, or will be this afternoon, and there's a high wool content in the yarn. Well, not really high, so much as noticeable to my uber-sensitive skin). I'm really reluctant to do anything with that ridiculous Cambridge Sweater (which is fine, my girlfriend's birthday isn't for another 2 months). But I do really want to work with that Bernat Super Saver yarn (because I'm cheap and allergic to everything except, apparently, cashmere, and that's a wee bit out of my price range), and I bought enough of it last year to make the Cardigan for Arwen (Winter 2006 IK), so that might get started.

Wow, I had a lot more to say about knitting than I thought! Crazy.

FOR SOME REASON THIS PARAGRAPH GETS DELETED WHENEVER I TRY TO ADD ANOTHER PICTURE AND THEN IT AUTOSAVES AND I AM NOT WRITING IT A THIRD TIME, THANKS A LOT, BLOGGER.

The gist of it is, I went to the Big Whistle site today, and lo and behold:

I already own a Dixon aluminum whistle (the one with the brass tuning slide), but this one looks kinda ugly pretty neat. I'm a fan of the Dixon mouthpieces, although I wasn't at first, and I absolutely adore my brass Trad. I'm tempted to get a nickel Trad as well, since I love my nickel whistles (except the Waltons; that one is a bit awful), and the nickel Trad costs about half as much as this new aluminum deal. That and this new whistle costs as much as my brass-slide aluminum, which I have a love-hate relationship with. I'm not entirely sure I'm sold on the aluminum sound yet, although the brass-slide is the only whistle I've got that goes into the third octave without sounding HORRIBLE. I lie, the Susato Dublin VSB I have can get up there too, but then it REALLY sounds plastic-y. I've gotten my Oak up there too, but it squeaks more often than not.

I hear that the Sweetheart pro models can get up in the third octave. I only know one tune that goes up there (Countess Cathleen, from Riverdance), but I'd be willing to learn more if I had a whistle that didn't sound gross. I keep trying to post a picture, but it keeps deleting my middle paragraph for some reason, so I'm going to NOT do that again. In fact, Blogger has made me sufficiently angry enough to end this post now, which is all well and good since my posts are rambly and long and let's face it, I'm no Walt Whitman...although I could be...if I learned the names of the trees and then listed them...more whistle posts will come, for those of you who are definitely not interested...posts about Sweethearts and Feadogs and Waltons and Generations and Dixons and Silkstones and the Composite Burkes and the Aluminum Burkes and Chieftains(es?)...and that was only funny if you've read Leaves of Grass, and even then it's still a stretch.