I’m trying to take some time this summer to create a few one-off knitted pieces. Little landscapes or scenes are appealing because the possibilities seem endless, and it’s a great opportunity to incorporate some texture (you know, purling and cable patterns and maybe even a little lace), which I have been starting to miss lately after all the stockinette madness that my toys require.

My first effort is a little scene of itty-bitty lemmings jumping off a cliff. Here are the first two that I just knitted up (one is meant to be leaning over the edge, and the other dangling by one little paw):

This is by far the smallest thing I’ve ever attempted. And by the way, no need to be horrified at my subject choice – I checked, and lemmings do not typically make it a habit to hurl themselves off cliffs into the ocean. So this is just pretend mass suicide!

Here is a slightly better photo, with our couch standing in as the cliff:

I guess they’re a bit more convincing in person. Anyway, if all goes well, the finished piece will include knitted water, knitted cliff, and a small army of knitted lemmings in various stages of jumping.

As I’ve admitted before, I’m a sucker for cute video games. If you are too, then you must get Lego Star Wars II. This game (available for all kinds of game systems, though I’m playing it on PS2), allows you to play a variety of characters, from Princess Leia to an anonymous stormtrooper, through a super-condensed version of the three original Star Wars movies. And everything is made of Legos!

The attention to detail in the cut scenes is delightful – if you’ve seen the movies in the past 10 years or so, you’ll recognize little bits of action from the movie, though they whizz by in a fraction of the time that they played out in the original.

In fact, it’s kind of an interesting study of the Star Wars epic as a shared cultural story: if you had never seen the movies, you would have no idea what is going on in the video game, there’s so much shorthand in the scenes.

As for the gaming action, it’s well designed, incorporating little Lego puzzles in addition to the shooting of stormtroopers. Come upon a pile of Lego blocks and you can make your character assemble them into a robot or secret exit at lightning speed.

Oh, and you can play with two people! It’s fun to make John do the boring work of keeping the bad guys at bay while I put all the Lego contraptions together.

So it’s cute, and fun, and multi-player. Highly recommended.

And if you’re wondering, yes, there apparently was a first Lego Star Wars game, but it takes you through the prequel movies, which nobody liked.

Little outdated TV Guy used to be the talk of the town, but now he is dwarfed by today’s modern technology.

There’s not much to him, just a blank screen and antennae. (His knobs fell off sometime in the early ’90s.)

He doesn’t measure up in more ways than one….

Retirement isn’t so bad, though – now that no one is watching him, TV Guy has more time to watch what he wants to watch: Trading Spouses.

As of last night, our ’70s-lounge-y lamp from Target is broken.

My handy husband did everything he could – he checked the bulbs, then um, checked the bulbs again. Nothing wrong with the bulbs, so we can’t think of much else to do. It seems such a waste, since the lamp is only a couple of years old. But as you can see, my computer screen is now the brightest thing in my corner workstation, which is no condition for knitting.

While we think about what to do with the lamp, we’ve started appreciating the alternative lighting we have in our bedroom. Not really enough to knit by, but pleasant nonetheless:

This is Marcel Dzama’s Sad Ghost lamp. I got it for John for Christmas a year and a half ago. He is so sad, you have to love him.

And this one was a gift to me from John’s sister several years ago. This cat is apparently called Kamkam, but I haven’t found much about it on the web, though I think I’ve seen other products at Toy Tokyo.

In any case, I wish our so-stylish Target lamp had lasted as long as our silly novelty lamps!