Boring. Boring. Boring. My knitting is proceeding pretty much at a steady clip, and I'm most of the way in on my first Rockin Sock and so close to finishing Birch I can taste it. Sadly, however, there are no FO's and I'm not in the habit yet of taking pictures of WIP's. I can feel all zero of you beating down my door with pitchforks and torches, demanding "Where are the pictures! Must have pictures!" You will just all have to wait! I can't take this pressure! Aaaaah!
Instead, today we'll be starting a segment I like to call Ask the Knitting Gamer, or How Games and Knitting Do Not Mix.
Hello and welcome to Ask the Knitting Gamer. I have to say, with Gen Con coming up in two weeks, the excitement of being able to frighten unwashed gamer-boys with shiny pointy sticks is building to a fever pitch!
It sure is, Kiki!
Q: So, as the wife of a committed, though usually washed, gamer-boy, what kind of advice do you have for the novice Gamer Widow?
A: First of all, I want to reassure all knitters newly hitched to a gamer that his (ok fine, or her) hobby is actually ideally suited to your needs if you have the right attitude and carefully execute the Game Avoidance Technique I am about to describe. The types of events attended by gamers and their entourage are fairly ideal places to knit. A typical board game costs about as much as a skein or two of REALLY nice sock yarn (I'm talking the cashmere, people!) or several skeins of what you usually buy after petting the cashmere for a few minutes. If you work out a tit-for-tat hobby budget with your gamer, you get to feed the stash every time they succumb to their LGS (LYS equivalent) and that just warms the heart.
Q: What Game Avoidance Technique? How do you avoid the incessant demands to "participate" whenever games are laid out, thereby actually getting to knit?
A: Sadly, one of the biggest problems with having a gamer in your life is that their hobby, particularly if the video branch of the game tree is not their favorite, is by necessity a social one. There are few games that can be played alone, and those that can be generally suck anyway for single-player. I'm sure you can sympathize with how badly this must bother the poor gamers...unlike knitters, they can't practice their hobby any time they want. Thus, when they're in the mood to play and there is no event to attend, married gamers must pounce on their poor wives with demands to play. Here's how to maximize knitting time anyway.
(1) Have a headache, or the more believable alternative "heartburn."
(2) When at game events, which must stretch for hours to accomodate the playing of more than one game, play one game only, preferably a mid-range not-so-long one, and then sit at the table in an out-of-the-way chair and knit with a look on your face that says "I'm totally interested in the game you guys are playing."
(3) Gain a reputation for being the official knitter at game groups, with ass-kissing knitted gifts to the leadership if necessary.
(4) Play games that require significant thinking time during one's turn so that you can get an entire row or two in while everyone else takes their turn. This is particularly effective if you don't mind losing because you're missing everyone else's strategy. Note: this is not the time for cabling or lace...it gets tiresome if you're too absorbed in your work when your own turn arrives.
Join us next time, when we will be discussing Learning to Spin at a Gaming Convention, and How to Walk Through a 10,000 Person Crowd and Knit A Scarf Too
No comments:
Post a Comment