I have seen a lot of experienced knitters talk about the "chunky" gauge preferences of new knitters with disdain. It's either we're lazy, or don't want to commit so much time to a project. This is all true, of course, but I'd like to put forth another one - I just like chunky weight knits. I was going through my closet this weekend and all the sweaters I have bought in the last five years are all chunky weight. I don't have any fine knit pieces because they just don't appeal to me. So it would follow that I would prefer to make chunky knitted items for myself.

As a reward for actually cleaning the house this weekend, we went and bought ourselves some Williams-Sonoma Pink Grapefruit Hand Soap and a foamy dispenser (which doesn't appear to be on their web site). You put two tablespoons of soap in, add water, shake, and foam gets dispensed, it's fun, and I'm estimating that one bottle of soap will last us about seven years. There is a similar one in the ladies room of Freight and Salvage, after playing with that I knew I needed one of my own. I also discovered that well after my whining, the Discovery Channel Store is carrying orange and olive colored yoga mats and bricks, oh sorry they're "fern" and "mango".

Ljc linked to the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia, which is so close to me and I didn't even know! (more here). And that got me thinking about the Jelly Belly Factory and how great that is for a rainy day (they also have Jelly Belly shaped pizza and hamburgers in the cafeteria). And that got me thinking about all the other stuff around here I want to do:

• Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company tour
• Dryers Ice Cream Factory tour
• The Tech Museum
• Scharffen Berger factory tour
• Stanford Linear Accelerator Center tour
• Winchester Mystery House
• Hearst Castle
• Copia
• and of course, all that wine

What else should I see? more: The Mus�e M�canique is open in it's new (hopefully temporary) location, my mom and I stumbled across it when she was visiting. And if you ever take a tour of Alcatraz, allow me to recommend the evening tour. It's slightly more expensive, but the ferry goes all the way around the island on the way out, you are given short talks about the history of Alcatraz on the way up, and when you emerge from the audio tour (which is surprisingly good) the city is all lit up in front of you.

Knitty has put up it's Spring surprise - Sweetness!

I went to college in slightly upstate New York and whenever I was in Manhattan I would go to the Pearl River Mart on Canal to look at soup bowls and shoes. So when I saw a picture of it in this month's Lucky magazine (page 32) I was stunned, I was used to a crowded little warehouse, this photograph looks like a boutique. Sure enough, they say "There original Canal Street location was recently swapped for cleaner, brighter digs." I never expected Pearl River Mart would have a web site, yay!

Shelby wrote to tell me about Lip Medic, a whole site devoted to selling as many different types of lip balm as possible. Wow. They have coffee flavored, that trendy rosebud salve, and among all the ways you can browse are by brand, flavor, spf, and even container shape. And this is where I really grind my teeth over the Why Didn't I Think Of This-edness of it all - they have (scroll to the lower part of this page) not one, not two, but three Lip Balm Of The Month sets.

New toys! pink sparkly ring from The Carrot Box dinosaurs journal from Ex Librix Anonymous craft apron from Crackers + Honey [as seen in Bust!]

If you are looking for something to listen to allow me to recommend the audio from Fray Cafe 3, the stories are always fabulous. Bonus: my very own Scott got up on stage with his guitar.