Paused for maintenance

I'll be in Chicago next week for the Vineyard Midwest Regional Conference, offline.  Meantime, this is the state of play:

• I'm well over halfway on sock #2 of the English Country Garden socks and the Karaoke scarf is one ball down with three to go.  I'm taking these with me to the conference.
• Picked up Come Closer by Tarkan (English lyrics, not Turkish), and The Rough Guide to the Asian Underground, which are my new favourite CDs.
• England was knocked out of the FIFA World Cup by Portugal in their quarter-final game.  Germany lost its semi-final game to Italy.  The final is between Italy and France on Sunday 9th July and I think Italy will win.

When I get back, I'm going to try the Dublin Bay socks pattern (PDF link) with the cotton Lana Grossa Meilenweit that Yvette sent me for Beth's Unloved Sock Yarn Swap back in February.  I have no cotton socks and lace doesn't scare me after Faina's Scarf.  The yarn deserves to be loved.

If you're bored with generic Radio Pop, check out the Rough Guide World Music CD series, they are a good selection of musical styles from around the world.  I have the Arabesque, Brazilian Electronica, Asian Underground, and Australian Aboriginal ones, and I like all of them.  Tarkan (Turkish) and Natacha Atlas (Arabic/European) are also well worth checking out.