FINALLY.

I'm technologically viable again.  I detailed my iMac woes at the start of this semester, ad nauseam.  After eight years my beloved Strawberry iMac was out-of-date and barely functional.  This week, I took the plunge, gritted my teeth, went to the Apple store and bought a new laptop.  It's faster and holds twice as much memory out of the box than the iMac did after I bought and installed extra RAM over the years in order to max it out.  Thanks to a rebate I got a combination color photo printer/scanner for free!  On the down side I'll have to buy upgrades for Photoshop and Illustrator, but it will be worth it in the end. Oh yeah--and I had to buy an external USB modem because the computer doesn't have an internal modem.  I had to drive back to the Apple store because I didn't for one minute think that a new computer wouldn't have an internal modem in it.  Yes, I still use dial-up.  I don't want to hear it.  Someday I'll be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but for now I don't want to be bothered with having to switch ISPs, etc.  Sucks to be me, I know.  But at least I got a free printer.

Having a working computer means I can now resume blogging, a task made increasingly difficult on my old Mac.  I like blogging.  It's a conceit, I know, and I know that no one reads them, but there's something satisfying about publishing my own online journal.  I actually have three blogs.  My knitting blog gets the most hits thanks to the many knitting and craft forums I belong to.  This blog is my "smart blog." I started it when I became serious about writing again. I mostly review books and zines and other literary topics, though recaps of the latest Doctor Who episode crop up quite often.  I have a sewing and stitching blog as well, but it only has a couple of posts on it over the past two years, mainly because I'm still just learning how to sew (no time!) and I don't do other needlework as often as I knit.  I won't bother to post a link.

Most people may find this funny, but knitting blogs are hot right now. No, really! Google "knitting blog" and it returns 531,000 results.  Everyone and their Goth kid sister has a knitting blog  these days. I confess that, as soon as I became aware of the phenomenon three years ago, I had to have one, too.  I think for me the appeal is part showing-off, part bonding with like-minded people all over the world, part archive.  Knitting blogs are a wonderful medium that lets people share patterns and tips, ask for and receive help from one another, and share resources and stories of who in their family taught them to knit.  Knitting is passed on to a new generation as Internet-savvy teens and twenty-somethings flock to the craft.  In turn, these bloggers are sharing tips to older knitters on how to set up their own blogs, how to upload pictures, and how to have more fun using the internet as a tool for exploring an ancient craft.  Sharing--and blogging--is a wonderful thing.

In case anyone's interested, here are some of the more "famous" knitting blogs out there:

The Yarn Harlot 

Queer Joe's Knitting Blog

It's A Purl, Man