Like the Thunderbirds, but they want to beat you up

Kate patrols the rich vein of knitting blogs on the Web (a representative example) My mom used to describe my grandfather’s fly-fishing hobby as “relaxation for brain-surgeons”, and she was right: the exacting, small-scale demands of tying, selecting, and deploying a royal coachman number 14 were therapeautic for those whose jobs were equally exacting. Knitters are the same way, I think: it’s a highly technical skill, involving not a little math, and requires a non-trivial investment of time and money in order to progress. Young freelance illustrators and art directors (another example) with digital cameras and (often) free time between jobs are the perfect demographic for knit blogs, and there’s a lot of really cool stuff out there. I even made a sock dog after seeing Anna’s of Absolutely-vile.com‘s pattern.

Kate sent me the link to Anna’s site, originally, and some clicks around in the community led me to ReadyMade Magazine, from which I got the idea for the Guerilla Drive-In. Work is progressing nicely on the Commando LCD Projector, by the way: I wired up a Sylvania halogen high-beam headlight to run off of DC power, with a Radio Shack adapter, and I bought five feet of six-inch aluminum ducting to use for the projector body. More on that later.)

In ReadyMade, I found an ad for Kid Robot, which has lots of 12″ action figures for Hong Kong platter spinners and other clunky-shoed Asian hip-hoppers. Take a look, if you have half an hour to kill. The most interesting figures there, I thought, were the “Brothersworker” series, which are a set of blue-collar industrial action figures, all with their own union-trade specialties: “Bomb is an expert in the construction site on the bombing techniques.” They’ve all got big, hulking, Guy Ritchie cockney foreheads, and come with working tools: Smart (pictured above) comes with a TIG welder, as far as I can tell. The figures are hugely detailed, and hugely expensive. here’s the official site.