Hope You Had a Happy Equinox!

Yesterday was the Equinox, and I hope you had a good one.

Yesterday, Jupiter was the closest to Earth it has been for 47 years, and the closest it will be in our lifetimes.

I have a camera with a looooong lens, but this was the best photo I could get of it last night. It looked very bright when I was just looking at it, but the photo made it almost invisible. I had to hike up the contrast drastically in PhotoShop to be able to see it. I was hoping to be able to see the moons, but just couldn't. It's possible that the light fog that was present was responsible for that.

While I was out there and taking photos, I took a picture of the moon and Jupiter together:

I had to hike up the contrast to be able to see Jupiter in this one, too, in spite of the fact that Jupiter and the Moon looked equally bright to me. I only messed with the contrast on Jupiter, not the moon in the photo above. The sort of halo around the moon is because of the mist we were experiencing where I live at the time.

Tonight, though, the moon will be full, and maybe the mist won't happen. We'll see. And although Jupiter was at it's very closest last night, it's not like it's moving directly away from us, so it'll still be pretty close in case you missed it last night!

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Tonight, we have a bonanza of good shows on! Season premiers include Bones, Fringe, The Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, and (I think) The Mentalist! Vampire Diaries premiered last week, so there will be a new episode, but not a premier.

While we're on the subject of the media, my friend, Tim Davis is currently filming a zombie movie (Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre), and the last day of principle filming will be on Sunday. I'll be going (doing make up), and I just found out that Tim needs some extra zombies, so I'm going to ask Holly if she wants to be a zombie for the movie. Yes, Holly, you will get a credit on the movie if you do this!

I'll be taking my cameras along, and snapping lots of pictures. I already told Tim I'd give him copies of all the photos that turn out well. I'll see if it's all right with him to show some of them on my blog. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun, plus I'll get to add more credits to my IMdB page!

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As you can see, there's not much happening around here, just celestial events and zombie movies! I probably won't get a chance to blog tomorrow, though.

Have fun tomorrow and I hope your weekend is as fun as mine's going to be!

Quiet Monday

I'm still recovering from all the walking around on Saturday.

While I'm doing this, I am amusing myself in part by checking out the voting status for the covers for the Steve Canyon DVD. There are 130 votes in so far (probably more by the time you check it). Add to the excitement, and vote if you haven't already. 

That includes you, Holly! I know you told John which one you liked, but he couldn't figure out if you actually voted for it or if you just told him.

It's an odd day. There are plenty of things that I have to do, but none of them involves a deadline (or at least not a deadline that's close). So, I have some freedom.

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I've been trying to get a start on the sleeves for the Celtic sweater. I can get the shape for the sleeve cap with no problem, but picking up stitches from the shoulder and adding the shaping is making the stitches on the cap look messy.

I've frogged it 4 or 5 times so far. It's very discouraging. I can get the knit side to look good, but the purl side looks like a mess! The only thing I can think of at this point is to go back and embroider some pretty stitches on in the same yarn.

And I'd really like to have this done for this weekend! But it's looking more and more like that isn't going to happen.

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Tonight is jam-packed with good stuff on TV! I'll be glued to the set after about 7 pm, trying to get a good start on the first sleeve of the Celtic sweater.

Once again, SciFi is showing four hours of Lost, starting at 7 pm. I'm really starting to get sucked into this.

Over on NBC, they're making me happy that I have a DVR by showing a new Chuck, and Heroes. It's not science fiction, but Life will be on after Heroes, and it's good.

Also not science fiction, but Bones will be on TNT after all that on NBC.

Have a great Monday!

September Charms Homework

You may or may not be aware that I have joined a Harry Potter House Cup KAL on Ravelry.

Each month (or in one case, each week) there is a homework assignment posted for any members who care to participate.

The September Charms assignment was to choose either Lumos or Wingardium Leviosa to knit something for.

For Wingardium Leviosa, we need to make something that shows something that flies, or, for extra points, is something that flies itself, like a kite. The sweater I did for an earlier HP KAL would have been perfect. One year, for Christmas, Harry gets a blue sweater from Mrs. Weasley with a snitch on the front of it. Of course, since I did this for a previous KAL, it's not eligible.



For Lumos, you need to make something that shows something that lights up, or, better yet, something that actually lights up.

I made this Christmas stocking with beads (some of them star shaped) and white yarn that are glow-in-the-dark, so that when the lights go out, the stocking lights up by itself.

You can see other finished projects here.

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Yesterday, I planned to do a lot of things, but then reality intruded with it's own plans, and very little of the the things I planned actually got done.

I'm finding that the current second great depression is causing a lot of the same effects as the first one There was a discussion I heard on the radio about it because of a book that had been written on the the great depression. 

The author said that it tended to separate people by their reaction to it. Some people became very nasty and treated others badly because those others could no longer afford to pay their debts. Some of these people went so far as to abandon their children.

In other cases, whole communities banded together to help each other survive in the best way possible.

Yesterday, annoyed that my bank had imposed fees that they previously had told me they wouldn't do, I went to close an account with them. I was amazed to find that they refunded some of the fees, changed my account to one without fees, and added in several nice things I hadn't even thought to ask for! So, now, according to the new set-up, I not only have a little money to spend at the Fall Fiber Fest, that money shouldn't be spent on anything but fiberarts, and I really need to spend it to avoid bank fees! This is the first time in my life that somebody else wanted me to spend money at a fiberarts sale!

So, now I'm really excited about the Fall Fiber Fest on Saturday! There has been some rain last week, and it looks like it might rain now, so I'm not sure about the footing we'll find this weekend. I'm taking my Wellies. But the weather sounds like it would not be better if we were given an air conditioning controller to set it up! The high for the day will be about 70, so we may want a little something to keep warm at some point, but it will not be too hot, even in the sun that is expected!

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So, here is the schedule coming up for a while:

4 Sep 08  Fall Fiber Festival

18 Sep 08  Maryland Renaissance Festival

6-9 Nov 08  Stitches East

And then, of course, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and Twelfth Night.

Wow! What a lot of wonderful stuff to do!

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John and I are getting down to the end on the front cover of the New Steve Canyon DVD. We are pretty much agreed on the cover except for the colors for the title. We worked on it for a while yesterday.

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Tonight, Pushing Daisies is back on ABC for it's season premier!

In non-SF TV news tonight, it will be followed by Private Practice,  and Bones will be on at the same time.

Knight Rider will also be on (NBC) at the same time, which creates a conflict for me. I found the premier sufficiently intriguing to want to watch some more, but it will not be on again later in the week on the SciFi Channel, so I'll have to make some hard choices in order to see it.

Tomorrow evening, get set for another new episode of Supernatural, which has developed into the best spooky show on TV for a long time.

And on Friday, the premier of Sanctuary will be lighting up the SciFi Channel.

Have a great rest-of-the-week!

Creepy Books

I read a blog over on Xanga by Fibermom. She's looking for some creepy books for a group she joined that's starting to read creepy books now and up until Halloween. What Fun!

She asked for recommendations for creepy books and I thought you might be interested in my comment (which got out of hand and ran on and on).

Here's what I said:

I was surprised to find that I don't have many creepy books on my bookshelves.

I read Lightning by Dean Koontz recently. It's a time travel story told from the perspective of one person traveling through time in the normal way, so the story happens out-of-order for her, if you can follow that. Some arbitrary and scary things happen to our heroine, and she is saved over and over by a man who doesn't age. But will he continue to be able to save her? 

I also have A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane. It's a youth book, but very good about a teen named 'Nita who is a wizard, and is sent to Ireland for the summer and runs into a lot of very old Irish myths come to life. And some of those myths are pretty scary. I enjoyed it tremendously. 

If you want evil sorcerers, vampires, werewolves and wizards, there are the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. They start with Storm Front. I can't recommend them highly enough, but in spite of all the magical creatures, not really creepy. They're scary, but not creepy, if you catch the difference. 

There's also Tam Lin by Pamela Dean.  articular version of Tam Lin, but I've heard praise from so many people about it. The traditional story has Tam Lin captured by fairies (more like Tolkein's elves, but with an evil streak). Tam is convinced that the fairy queen has bad plans for him, and tries to escape on Halloween with the aid of his mortal girlfriend. Fairport Convention has the Childe ballad of Tam Lin on a few of their CDs, but you can find it on Amazon available as a single song. It's VERY spooky! This is classical horror that's probably well over a thousand years old. 

My coat finally arrived yesterday, and it almost all that I could have hoped for! It IS faux suede, but, except for the weight, indistinguishable from real suede. The toggle buttons are plastic, but a pretty convincing copy of horn. And, amazement of amazements, they included an extra button (which immediately went in my button box--the one that I'm going to have to replace soon, because there's no room left in there). The buttons I bought from JoAnn Fabrics match them perfectly, so I can add them to fasten the mittens and hat to my coat so I won't lose them, once I figure out a good location for them.

I'm in ecstasy about the coat. And it's getting cooler lately, giving me hope that I may be able to wear it soon.

I'm going to regret that last statement later this Winter, when the high for the day doesn't get up to 22 degrees (F).

In intended to go to WalMart yesterday, but I got a late start, and due to a dead spot in the bus schedule, had to wait almost 45 minutes until the bus was due. It didn't show up until more than 15 minutes late, and then it wouldn't stop for me! Between the late start, and another half hour wait, I gave up on it. So, I have to do that today. And once it's done, I doubt that I'm going to want to walk over to the library, too.

There's not much on TV tonight. I'm going to be watching Bones. It's not SF, but it's good.

Have a great Wednesday!

I Finally Finished Something!

I finally got so frustrated that I've finished the blue multi watch cap. 

I put a loop on the top of it so that I could fasten it to a coat button if I decided to take it off my head.

Tonight, the season opener of Bones will be on Fox Network.

I thought that the SciFi Channel would be showing a new episode of Eureka last night, but was disappointed to find that they were rerunning the third episode of the new season. What kind of a network does that?

I was rummaging around for new things to put in my Amazon store, and found a collection of the Complete Emma Peel Avengers. It doesn't have any episodes that don't have Diana Rigg in them, but there are three Avengers episodes that have her in them that never made it to TV, and they're included! Three Diana Rigg Avengers episodes that I've never seen!

Have a great day!

Ho Hum Wednesday

First of all, I want to correct something that I said in my last post.

There will be two hours of Bones on Fox Network tonight, but it will not be the season opener. By the way, please click on where it says "Fox Network." There's an ad for Fringe in the upper right corner. Make sure you mouse over it. By the way, Fringe will be premiering on 9 September.

Bones is not science fiction, but it's a really good program, so I just threw it into the post.

I have finally given up on the knot on the side and finished it.

The loop of the knot that starts at the top also ends with a loop at the bottom. There is only one other loop.

It's not quite as wonderful as I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd been afraid it would be. Considering that the bottom of it was ad lib, it's not bad.

I'm going to have to start writing down what I want to say, because I know that I thought of ten things I want to say since the last post, and I won't remember them until this post is done.

In the meantime, I've written the letter to go with the appeal I'm sending to the IRS. I wanted to take a break and do something else before printing the letter so that I could read it again.

Actually, everything that made the appeal necessary was caused by the IRS, and is just a thinly-veiled way of saying that the economy is going down the tubes and that they want more money because they're suffering just like the rest of us. I want to make that clear in the letter without saying something like "You idiots! I'd make a mistake, too, if I thought that you'd pay me $4,000 for doing it!" 

And, by the way, they're still sending these things to the wrong address after six written versions they've gotten and at least five times that I've given them the address over the phone. I wish I could be as well paid for being totally inept.

Anyway, have a great Wednesday!

Ravelympics: The Sequel

It turns out that I also got a medal for the Design Discus, since I entered the wimple in that event, too. I just didn't get it until yesterday.

I'm really going to be impressed when I finish the sweater, which, despite lots of knitting, hasn't gotten much longer, so there's not much to see.

On the home front, I got an email from Holly saying "I'm sorry."

It turns out that Robin got up early on Sunday morning, and managed to get her up and awake while he was doing it. Then Malaia called and asked "Are you sure you don't want to go to the Renfair today?"

Well, she went, and a good time was had by all.

She and Malaia were particularly impressed with a new shop at the fair: Grichels. They each bought a handbag, and Holly also got a checkbook cover. From what I can see on the website, I suspect it's a little like the wallet with teeth that Hagrid gave Harry in the Harry Potter books.

In the meantime, I'm still knitting and still filling out forms.

There's a new episode of Eureka on the SciFi Channel tonight, along with some reruns: one from last season, and one that was new last week in case you missed it.

This isn't science fiction, but there's the two hour season premier of Bones on Fox tomorrow night.

In the meantime, I'm still filling out forms and knitting.

Have a great Tuesday!