Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

This seems to sum up Saint Patrick's Day most years for most people, so I thought it would be appropriate.

Another thing that I think is appropriate is sharing with you a recipe for a drink called an Irish Fog, invented by an SCA friend of mine, Alan Feldman/Baron Silver.

1 part Jameson's
1 part Drambuie
1 part Irish Cream

Combine, with or without crushed ice, shake, and serve. It tastes like a chocolate milkshake, positively yummy! It will make you drunkish!

I was going to give you a link to Wikipedia, where they give you a long dissertation on the history of Saint Patrick's Day, but I think this is more fun!

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It's a Harry Potter Weekend!

ABC Family is having a Harry Potter weekend (again). Yes, I know they've already done it to death, but it's still fun for me, so I thought it might be fun for you, too.

Currently, they're showing Goblet of Fire, which is appropriate, because they attend the quiddich world cup in the beginning, and Ireland wins, so there's a lot of shamrock and leprechaun symbolism in it.

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The New Knitty Is Out!

The Spring issue of Knitty is out, and you can see the new patterns here!

It's getting up near 90 degrees in here, and I just can't stand to sit and write any more.

I hope your whole weekend is fabulous!

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Peter Diamandis’ Laws for Life

I was on Facebook today, and my friend, Steve Sheets included this link for Peter Diamandis’ Laws for Life.

I love this so much!

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Unfortunately, the first thing I need to fix (rule 1) is Blogger. You many or may not have noticed that this blog is published on Blogger. Earlier this week, they removed a beautiful, elegant, easy-to-use interface, and replaced it with what looks like the first try at a really clunky, difficult, problematic way of publishing a blog.

I have loved Blogger, but this mess is enough to make me investigate trying another way to post my blog. They've taken precision tools that are a snap to use, and replaced them with crayons, but not so easy to use.

I won't enumerate all it's flaws, but this has to be fixed!

If my blog isn't up to snuff for a bit, that's the reason why.

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I got on the internet today, and there were all sorts of conflicting reports about Social Security. A statement by the President that Social Security may not be paid on the third (when I get mine), and other reports that it's separately-funded, and will go out no matter what.

There are many people who depend on SS for their income. They spent their lives paying into SS, and now, when they need it, the possibility is that it may be pulled out from under them is just not acceptable. Particularly when it seems to be proposed as a way to allow millionaires to cut their taxes. They should be grateful. I realize that the US income tax on over a million dollars is a lot, but it's nothing compared to England, where the Beatles song, Taxman is accurate: "One for you, nineteen for me!" and "Be thankful I don't take it all."

I can't help thinking about a song I loved back in the '70s, called Streets of London by Ralph McTell.

In spite of being so sad, it's very beautiful. I'm afraid that this is what we're going to be seeing all over the US, possibly very soon. I live in a building where virtually everyone is on Social Security, and the whole apartment building may be emptying out next month if the Republicans have their way.

In case you're feeling sad from that song, here's a ragtime medley, also by Ralph McTell. It seems to be mostly Windy and Warm.

Here's a version of Windy and Warm for comparison.

It's always been one of my favorite songs!

That cheered me up a bit!

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Tonight we'll be having a usual Tuesday night line-up on TV.

We have White Collar and Covert Affairs on USA, and The Nine Lives of Chloe King on ABC Family.

I know that Chloe is a kids or teen program, but, like Harry Potter, it's good. Possibly not as good as Harry, but worth a watch.

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I want to try posting a photo, too, just to see how the process works with this version of the interface, so (hopefully) here's a photo of some kind. I haven't decided what I'd like to put up here as a test.

This is just a photo I had hanging around that seemed funny. The process for putting up photos is almost the same as it was.

I have some yarn ordered, and I really thought it would be here today. Maybe I'll have some knitting input for tomorrow or Thursday!

Have a wonderful evening!

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Mea Culpa! Errata and Other Stuff

Well, I got ABC Family's Harry Potter Weekend all mixed up!

Tonight is Goblet of Fire and Sunday night is Half Blood Prince. I still don't know of any plans to put on Order of the Phoenix.

Sorry!

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I just got back from the grocery store, where they had one last copy of Vogue Knitting! They don't have any now, because I couldn't leave without it.

There are a lot of beautiful things in this issue, but three things really caught my eye. The least of them is a "Scarf" shown below. I think this is actually circular. It looks like it could be worn without the coat as a poncho, too.

I LOVE things with wings, and the rectangular wrap in this photo is no exception!

There is also a sleeveless coat with similar wings, and I love that, too, maybe even better!

As usual, though, I immediately want to change it all around. I think I'd like it with a hood, sleeves, and I can't leave out the pockets!

I have to run, now. Being Human is on BBC in America, and I may be wrong, but it looks like there are two new ones! Hope you're having a great weekend!

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Important addition!:

After extolling the virtues of Vogue Knitting, and then paging through the magazine, I feel I should issue a warning!

A large percentage of the patterns in the magazine require charts, and they're NOT included with the magazine! You have to go online to find the charts and print them out. In the case of the sleeveless coat, I need to study it more, but it looks like the chart provided is really for the wrap, and I don't see how you could possibly use it for the coat. This requires more study, but at least at first glance, it looks like a colossal mistake!

Another Giveaway and Miscellaneous

Wow! I opened my email today, and there it was… Berroco sent me a notice about their newest giveaway, a kit for the Northampton Kerchief. This is much prettier than it sounds like it would be.

The photo doesn't have a link in it, you have to click the link in the paragraph above.

Pretty, isn't it?

I entered immediately! You might want to do the same, since entries have to be in by the 26th. You might also want to sign up for their newsletter, because the winners will be announced there.

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More knitting content: If you design your own knitting patterns and/or would like to chart your own designs, here's some information about three knitting chart fonts! I haven't tried the fonts yet, but they sound like the best solution to charting yet. And I chart things all the time.

My previous best solution has been graph paper and pencil. Although that's probably the best while you're developing something, I really want to keep a permanent, and reprintable solution on my computer! Not to mention that you can publish it that way!

I'm seriously considering frogging almost all of the Celtic Sweater and redoing it! There are a few things that I'm just not totally happy with. I'm still thinking about it, but you may suddenly be hearing a lot more about it on my blog (with photos, I do have a new phone, after all).

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If you use antibacterial soap, you might want to reconsider.

The ingredients that provide the antibacterial effect for these kinds of product can pose a severe threat to your endocrine and reproductive systems. Please click on the link to find out more.

There are millions of people in the US with hypothyroidism who have not been diagnosed due to the misinformation spread by drug companies to doctors who hang on their every word. I see people around me all the time with hypothyroid symptoms that are so bad that I notice them just from sharing a bus ride with them. And their doctors not only don't know enough to recognize these symptoms, but are actively testing those people with inaccurate tests and telling them that they don't have a thyroid problem!

And, by the way, if you have high cholesterol you do have a hypothyroid problem! Not maybe, not possibly, you DO! And I can almost guarantee that your doctor is unaware of this connection.

If you have high cholesterol and you do happen to be diagnosed with hypothyroidism by your doctor, make sure he prescribes natural desiccated thyroid (Armor Thyroid, Naturethroid or West Throid), which he probably won't want to do. This will fix the cholesterol problem (along with a lot of other problems) whereas Synthroid or other T4 medication won't fix those problems. But the drug manufacturers have told doctors to prescribe T4 medications so that they can sell lots of other drugs for cholesterol and more. Check this link!

I'm glad to hear that it's the FDA that's being sued. Maybe they'll learn to stop rushing dangerous drugs to market so that drug manufacturers can save money on the testing and start making money on drugs that are going to kill thousands. The drug companies won't learn. They make so much money on drugs that they feel they'd rather pay out some of it to the people they harm than miss all the profits. Unfortunately, the episode of Leverage that dealt with this problem is all too accurate! It's called The Double Blind Job, and I'm sure they'll rerun it. Watch for it! TNT (I think) has been airing reruns of Leverage on late night/early morning.

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I was going to post this earlier, but we had a power outage last night, and somehow, it damaged the elevator. I was just about to start the post earlier today, and my computer went off. I panicked for a moment when it wouldn't start up again, but then thought to check the printer, which also wouldn't start, and after a bit of investigation realized that the stove didn't work, either.

I tried resetting the circuit breakers with no effect, and then they made an announcement about the problem with the elevator and said that they'd turned off the electricity in part of the building while they fixed it. It seemed confusing, because the TV and some other stuff, like the microwave and refrigerator, still worked.

Everything's back to normal now, though.

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I love my local library, and read lots of books that I borrow from them on a regular basis. There's just no way that I could afford to continue reading without them.

But I ran into a bit of a problem with them this week. There are some books that are very popular, and I ran afoul of that this week with Meg Cabot's Airhead series. There are three books in the series: Airhead, Being Nikki, and Runaway, in that order. They have plenty of copies of Airhead, and I got that with no problem, but they don't have many copies of the other two books. Unfortunately, Airhead doesn't have much of an ending, it just segues into Being Nikki, so it's kind of like getting half of a double-length book. I picked up the first book, which my local library had on the shelf a week or so ago, and read it. I had the other two books on order, but had to wait because of the demand.

I checked on what books were in, and found that Runaway was sitting and waiting for me, but that I wouldn't be able to get Being Nikki for a while! Who wants to read the first, third and second books of a series in that order? And, since there are other people waiting for the last book, I can't keep it very long.

So, I broke down and bought a real, honest-to-goodness ebook copy of Being Nikki, my first ever real ebook! I got the Nook application for Android on my phone, and it seems to be working well. I'd rather have a real Nook ebook reader, though, because I can run down the battery on my phone pretty quickly when I read.

If you're interested in the books themselves, they are considered "young adult" books by the library, but a lot of adults are reading kids books these days. As I've said before, "A good story is a good story." The premise for these books is a little hard to believe, but if you can get past that, they're the usual top-notch writing that I've come to expect from Meg Cabot.

In the first story, Em dies in a freak accident, her body crushed beyond repair at the same time that Nikki Howard dies from an aneurysm. The doctors having a ruined body with a perfectly good brain and another perfect body with a useless brain are able to combine the two and create a healthy person, who is Em in Nikki's body. Obviously, Em has trouble dealing with a past that she can't remember and another that she can remember, but which is not legally her past.

The Meg Cabot series I've liked best so far is the Mediator series, and I have to say that if you like ghost stories and liked the Twilight series, this is even better!

I'm really tickled about my first real ebook, though.

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There's a new Eureka and Haven on SyFy tonight!

If you're a Harry Potter fan, ABC Family will be having another of their Harry Potter weekends, starting with The Prisoner of Azkaban tonight, Half Blood Prince Saturday night, and finishing with The Order of the Phoenix on Sunday evening! To the best of my knowledge, it'll be the first time Order of the Phoenix will be shown on non-premium cable.

Other than that, the big news on TV is that it's nearly football season, and it's squeezing almost everything else off TV! My only consolation is that it will eventually go away.

Have a wonderful weekend!

I Wish I Could Replace Comcast TV with Something that Works!

OK, I know I said something nice about Comcast last week, but I was wrong, wrong, WRONG! They are the worst provider of TV service in the US and possibly the world!

I frequently can't watch one whole minute of TV without the picture breaking up/going to black/freezing, and the sound goes out for a short while at least three times in an hour show, and It has declared "This DVR is not Authorized on this Network" and then turned itself off at least three times in the last three days! Usually, during a recording! It also can't access most of the digital TV guide information, and now often displays what it can with big green hash marks through the listings!

Tomorrow we are going to try again to do what was supposed to happen last week on Wednesday. They were going to replace my DVR, but after six calls to me to be certain that I was going to be there, and that I still wanted the new DVR, plus three hours of waiting for the repairman, nobody showed up!

Last week, they said they'd be here between 2 and 5 pm, but this time they just said "Friday." So, I'm going to be stuck here until they show up. IF they show up, that is!

If they still have them available on the third of June, I'm going to get a TiVo! With a TiVo, maybe at least I'll be able to get the digital TV Guide, which is only possible to get in bits and pieces on my Comcast DVR.

Maybe, when I fast forward through a commercial, the TiVo won't display the picture from one part of the show while giving me the sound from another part. Maybe I'll be able to see the TV guide with some certainty for more than an hour in the future (which I can't do with my DVR).

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On to TV content, which is a much happier subject, although not much, considering that it's Memorial Day Weekend, and most networks seem to have decided not to bother showing anything that anyone would want to watch because they think nobody will be watching over the holiday anyway. I can't help thinking that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Stations that do not think this way include BBC in America, which is showing a lot of Star Trek Next Gen and Doctor Who this weekend, and ABC Family, who are making it a Harry Potter weekend (again). They won't be showing Sorcerer's Stone or Chamber of Secrets, but will be showing Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix. You may have seen them before, but if Comcast (by some miracle) actually does arrive and gives me an empty DVR, I wouldn't mind recording them. So, I'm mentioning it.

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For all you knitters out there, I found a fabulous pattern for a shawlette. I like it so much that I'll be putting a link to it in the sidebar. I can't wait to make it!

What a fabulous, easy pattern! It could theoretically be knit in any weight yarn. I love those kinds of patterns!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend! I hope to get out enough to see some of Rolling Thunder this weekend! Have fun!

It's the First Sunday of Spring this Year

Couldn't think of a better title than that because there's not much happening today.

The most exciting thing I can talk about that's happened today is this photo from Franklin.

He's a very funny guy, and you can see this photo on his blog here, and follow him here. Please do, you'll enjoy him!

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It's still Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family, although it's winding down. They will be showing Order of the Phoenix soon, though. Check it out!

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I'm currently having a bit of my time taken up with a short gig that I don't want to jinx by talking about it. It's very cool, though, and I will write about it later, when it's all done, which has to be soon.

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Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

...And More Snow!

I woke up for a short while around 8 this morning, and there was no snow coming down.

At 11, when I woke up again, there was snow falling, but there didn't seem to be much accumulation since my previous check.

The local TV people have preempted all their regular programming, and they have news and weather people deployed all over the area with yardsticks and other measuring equipment saying things like "Wow! Look at all that snow!" and making and throwing snowballs or trying to play with toy trucks in the snow.

They've been telling people that the Potomac Mills Mall is open, but that most of the stores in the mall are closed, giving schedules of when various stores will be open, and then telling everybody to stay home.

They've been broadcasting images of plows and salt trucks at work and interviewing their drivers. We got to see an organized and previously scheduled snowball fight, plus an impromptu igloo built by a news crew. And, if you want to get on TV today, all you have to do is get stuck in the snow with a 4 wheel drive vehicle! There are lots of dummies who did just that, and had their stupidity proclaimed on network TV!

There are also lots of gratuitous shots of the Capitol building with snow falling in the front of it, too. Suspiciously, the ones I saw showed a sunny Capitol with no snow on it behind the snow that was falling. I suspect something underhanded.

At least it's better than watching snow fall at the Vienna Metro Station for a half hour, like we got to do last night!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, there's lots of snow around at the moment! One of the people on Twitter is calling it the Snowpocalypse!

The person on TV near Potomac Mills Mall (in front of Silver Diner, which is giving 25% off to anyone who braves the snow to eat there today) measured 21 inches of snow, and she said that there is an icy coating under that, which makes it an even deeper total snowfall. It looks like a bit less than that here, but it's hard to tell, because although the snow was wet, heavy big flakes for part of yesterday, it's switched back to the light, tiny, cold flakes that it started with, and it's drifting. A lot! Not to mention the areas that have been plowed.

The guy who was hired to plow the parking lot at my apartment building really was taking his job seriously last night. He plowed non-stop up until somewhere between 2 and 3 am today, at which point, he apparently went home to take a nap. Twelve hours and about nine inches later, he's back, hard at work.

The people who own the cars parked in front will have a lot of work clearing them off, once the snow stops and they want to go somewhere. One poor person with a compact car will have the major obstacle of finding his car before he can even think about clearing it out! It's at a point where the car itself is not visible anywhere, it just looks like a snow drift.

John called last night and requested that I post photos of all the snow. I took some photos earlier, but they're really bad. The snow has stuck to my windows and frozen there, so the camera wants to focus on that, rather than on the scene outside. And the ones where it is focused outside, the snow on the windows obstructs the view so much that they're not clear or easy to see.

This is a photo from the 19th of December, but it looks almost the same out there from time to time today. The difference is that there isn't a light covering of snow over my window.

I'll take photos once the snow stops and I can get out to take them without the obstruction of the snow on the windows.

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John called last night in a panic wanting to know what was on TV last night! He checked my blog, and didn't see anything about the TV schedule! Sorry John!

Tonight, on BBC in America, there will be a Doctor Who episode, and two Demon episodes, followed tomorrow night by two Doctor Who specials, Planet of the Dead, and Waters of Mars.

Tonight, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone will be on ABC.

The Legend of the Seeker will be on the CW (here) Sunday night, one rerun (your last chance to see Jolene Blaylock on LotS) followed by a new episode.

Pretty pathetic, isn't it?

To liven things up, you can check out an article on io9 about Dollhouse.

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Ravelry has it's Ravelympics reving up, ready to go at the beginning of the Olympics.

The person who inspired the Ravelympics with her Knitting Olympics, The Yarn Harlot, has been deluged with questions about her Knitting Olympics, and whether she's going to have them this time. You can read her answer and get the info here (scroll down).

Make your decisions and pick your teams and sign up. And make sure you have yarn on hand to cast on during the opening ceremonies!

I'm going back to the window to check the progress of the snow.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope you don't get snowed in!

iPad! I Don't Want to Comment on the Name, but I Can't Help It!

Well, the iPad has been announced today!

For those of you who didn't see it (like me), G4 has announced that they will show the announcement presentation on Attack of the Show tomorrow at 7 pm (Eastern). Check your local listings.

In spite of not seeing the original announcement, I've heard lots about it.

Particularly it's name.

One of the comments was about if you repeat Mac's iPad over and over quickly, it sounds like maxipad!

Alyssa Milano tweeted: "iPad. Let the feminine hygiene parodies begin." In her next tweet, she referred to it as "iTampon" and provided this link. You really have to read all the comments, all the way to the end!

In an attempt to change the subject of the giggling, somebody tweeted that Steve Jobs had opened with "I'm Steve Jobs, and I invented Windows 7!" The tweeter mentioned that he thought that was improbable, thereby revealing that he didn't get the joke at all, i.e., that previous Windows systems have been so bad that Steve expected this one to be, too, and that it would make people want to use a Mac.

In an attempt to stop giggling, you can find some of what Apple has to say about their new device here. The technical specifications are here. More info here.

I was thinking that the new device would be more like a tablet notebook, and I was really looking forward to it. This seems more like an overgrown iTouch, though, not a computer. If you read down to the bottom, though, you'll see that it does provide closed captioning support! It kind of cements the idea that it's an entertainment device, not a real computer, though.

But if you really think you want one, and you're on Twitter, check this out!

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In other (science) news, Holly sent me this link to a photo of the Aurora, which happened to illuminate something else! This is amazing, if true. I have a hard time believing that there is any satellite that looks that large from earth, though.

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Holly also sent me this link to information on the last two Harry Potter movies.

Harry in 3D? I'm not too sure what I think of this. The last thing I saw in 3D was that episode of Chuck, which gave me a headache, and it didn't matter if I used the glasses or not, it still gave me a headache. And it didn't really look 3D, even with the glasses. And the glasses made a lot of the picture difficult or impossible for me to see. I really think I'd rather see it in time-tested 2D.

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It was sunny and beautiful today, and I went out and walked around just to walk around. They're predicting snow for Saturday, so Winter will be back soon, and I wanted to grab this opportunity while I had the chance.

Unfortunately, that made me late to get this post up, and the shows I want to watch are already on.

Oh, and I went for my last visit to the dentist. He checked things out, made a very minor adjustment, and I'm done until next year, when they'll clean my teeth. I have new, beautiful front teeth, and I deliberately went out and bought food that I need to bite into to eat! I haven't had the nerve to try an apple yet, though.

Have a wonderful evening and a better day tomorrow!

Gettysburg: The First Night

I promised Lynn that I would write about my trip to Gettysburg in 1959, but there's just so much information that it would take me a whole day to begin to cover it all, so I'm breaking it down into parts. Probably three parts, but who knows at this point?

We got to the campground at Spanglers Spring late in the afternoon.

This is a current satellite view of Spanglers Spring, where we camped. The green square is where the Andersons pitched their tent, and Jean, Art and I, et al, pitched our tent in the blue square. The aqua circles are where people came along later and pitched tents in a row. The red circle is where we made a campfire.

The area where we pitched our tents was along the line of the high ground of the field. It sloped down to the road at the bottom of the map. That kind of thick, dark, meandering line on the right side of the map is actually Rock Creek.

Anyway, we said hi to the people who were already there, which were mainly the Andersons, and started pitching our tent. While we were doing that, other people started arriving and pitching their tents along the line that we had established. Don Steiner camped next to us, and brought Harry Lamb along, and they camped next to us. When things were unloaded from the cars, they were moved away and parked elsewhere.

Once everybody had set up and changed into their period clothes, they started coming out of their tents and being sociable. We built a campfire near the road, and in front of the line of tents, more-or-less in front of Andersons tent and settled down to making and consuming our dinners. I was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a shirt, a rust colored, suede fringed jacket, short hair and a blue Kepi.

This was kind of a motley crew because Art and the Andersons were Yankees, in the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers (the Bucktail Brigade). I don't remember which group Don (a Yankee) was from, but Harry was in Hampton's Legion (Rebels from South Carolina).

As it started to get dark, the campfire got to be more attractive, and most of us gravitated to it and sang Civil War songs. A lot of the adults there had brought along spirits, and were loosening up by drinking them. Huck and (I think) Randy had their fifes, and I had my Melody Flute (from grade school--I eventually got a real fife), and Huck was really annoyed with me because he and Randy had fifes in the key of B flat, and my flute was in the key of C, and he insisted that I couldn't possibly play it with them. I, on the other hand, wanted to try and transpose the songs to play them in B flat, even though I was using the key of C. It got pretty rowdy! At the campfire, I got to meet Jack Davis for the first time.

Somewhere during the night, somebody got sufficiently drunk that they thought it would be a good idea to fire off a canon. I think that they must've told us that we couldn't fire muskets or canons on the campgrounds or something, because somebody thought it would be a wonderful idea to cross Rock Creek to do it.

We had a short stop at Andersons tent while Huck and the boys pulled out a small canon that was a bit longer than a foot, plus powder, etc. We then walked down behind the row of tents and crossed Rock Creek on a rickety two-board bridge.

By "two-board" I mean that there were supports, and between each support were two long boards, one for each foot. They were so long, and they bounced with each step on them. That was bad enough with one person crossing the bridge, but with a whole troop, it was very treacherous. There was a hand rail on one side of the bridge, but it was so far away from the boards that it was almost useless. The bridge was at least 20 feet above the creek, so it was interesting!

Once we got to the other side, we took a very short walk through the trees, set down the cannon, loaded it, and set it off. Huck thought it would be spectacular to add a lot of magnesium to the black powder, and he was right, it was awe inspiring! Looking back on it, I'm surprised that we didn't kill ourselves!

After firing it off, we all trooped back (across the rickety bridge), and caroused around the fire for a while before eventually going to bed/passing out.

The next morning, I woke up, came out of the tent, and found myself looking down the barrels of some very large cannons! Another group had arrived during the night and started a new row of tents on the other side of the campfire, making a company street. They had their cannon parked next to their tent, and pointing right at our tent.

The next part of the Gettysburg saga is expected to be the battle itself.

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ABC Family is having another Harry Potter weekend! If you like the Harry Potter movies (and didn't OD on them over the holidays), check it out!

BBC in America is showing the Doctor Who episode, Smith and Jones (which is partly over as I write this), followed by the first and second episodes of Demons, in case you didn't see the first one last week.

Don't forget Chuck is on tomorrow night, two whole hours of it, followed by more Chuck and Heroes on Monday night, all brand new!

I have a lot to do, and I'm way behind, so have a great weekend!

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Addition:

I just realized that I wanted to tell you about the connection between hormones and losing weight. It's a great article!

Let It Snow!

Yesterday, we got our first snowfall of the season. It looked like this out my window at about noon:


It looks kind of misty because there was snow coming down. It continued to snow until about 5pm or so, and we probably got just a smidge over two inches. The air at ground level and the ground itself was above freezing when it snowed (although it went down later), so we wound up with two inches on the grass, ground and trees, and just a hint of slush on the sidewalks, and some dampness on the roads.

It looks very wintery and Christmassy! Very picturesque and pretty, and not a hassle, except when I walked out without the hood on my coat up and got some down the back of my neck.

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A couple of days ago, I finished a hat that's going to be a Christmas present. I won't say who it's for, but I will show you what it looks like.

The cuff is supposed to look like it's a mobius strip, although that's not how it's knitted. Give me an opinion. Does it look like that's what it is?

And right above the area where the cuff dips to look like it's twisting, there's a heart.

I finished knitting a wimple to go with this last night. It still needs blocking, and it will look kind of messy until I do that, so I haven't taken a photo of it yet. The blocking is waiting until I finish Christmas decorations.

I'm definitely going to make mitts to go with this set, but there will still be yarn left after that, so I haven't decided if I should make a scarf or mittens to go over the mitts to go with all of this. Opinions would be welcome! The scarf has the advantage that I can knit the mitts first, and then get the scarf started and just keep going until I run out of yarn and use it all.

This was knit with the Encore Tweed yarn in Grape Jam, for anyone who is interested in the yarn.

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I've been putting up Christmas decorations a little at a time. I do a little bit and then my back hurts, so I rest for a bit and do some more.

The little lavender tree is up on the divider between the kitchen and living room, although I still intend to put more lights in that area. It's very pretty and I like it.

The lights in the window are up, but not lit yet. I need two extension cords to light both the window lights and tree lights at the same time, and I only have one cord.

The extension cord that I got for the window lights is currently still next to the tree, which is up, but I need an extension cord for that, too. I bought a cord for it last year, but it's in use elsewhere now, so I need another one to light the tree. Until there's another cord, they can't both be lit at once. The cord is currently by the tree because I put up the two new strings of lights and wanted to test them and see how it looked. I could easily have used another string of star lights for the tree, but CVS only had two in white. All the rest were multicolored. They look really good, though, although the rose lights are prettier overall. I still want the star lights more than the rose ones, though.

I still need to put the ornaments up and clear away the boxes that all this stuff was in, so it's kind of messy at the moment, but I'll get back to it when I finish writing this and get it done.

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We've been drowning in Christmas movies, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings this weekend. I'm not complaining about any of that.

BBC in America came through for us and took down the listing for Torchwood yesterday and substituted the next episode of Doctor Who from the one they had in that time slot last week (last week was Turn Left, and yesterday was The Stolen Earth). There are three one hour Doctor Who episodes listed for next Saturday, but my digital TV Guide won't tell me what they are. Their online schedule says that they will finish the series of three with Journey's End next Saturday and continue with The Next Doctor and Planet of the Dead for any of you who missed them. They did say that there would be more new Doctor Who in December. They'll go crazy with the Doctor on Sunday and show several different episodes including repeats from Saturday and Voyage of the Dammed.

The Saturday after that (19th), they're going to go insane and show several Doctor Who episodes and specials including The Waters of Mars!

Tomorrow, Disney will be showing The Chronicles of Narnia at noon (here), and there will be a new Big Bang Theory and Castle as well as a new Closer. Wow!

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I was hoping to get out with Holly on Saturday or Sunday and spend some of the money the Social Security people should have been sending me, but didn't.

Unfortunately, Holly didn't feel good, and looked at the weather report and decided that she really didn't want to fight with snow while she was feeling that way, and declined to go.

I'm kind of worried about her, and I hope she feels better soon.

One of the things I wanted to get was a pair of shoes. JC Penny has some shoes that normally cost more on sale for $30. They're really good looking, and if they are as comfortable as I hope, I'd like to buy them. I have a sneaky suspicion that they're on clearance, and that's the reason for the lower price, so I want to do it ASAP.

But I can get there on the bus, so I guess that's what I'll do. I can also get them online and have them mailed to me, but they said I can buy them locally and it would be nice to be able to try them on first.

Well, I'd better get back to decorating!

I hope you had a great weekend and an even better week coming up!

September Is Here!

In these uncertain days, I happened to find a chart to help you diagnose what kind of flu you might have, should such an unhappy circumstance happen. This could be very important information, so pay attention and read the information!

And it's obviously Silly September.

Here is a video I found through Twitter.

I also got this as an email today:

Propose this in 2009: START A BILL TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOCIAL SECURITY

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SOCIAL SECURITY:

(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die. Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments...

For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7, 800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275, 000...00 during the last years of their lives.

This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitarieswho retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA!!! ZILCH!!!

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;

"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer), We ca n expect to get an average of
$1,000 per monthafter retirement..

Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

That change would be to

Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen.. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us

Then sit back.....

And see how fast they would fix it!

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.


How many people can YOU send this to?

Better yet......

How many peopleWILL you send this to ?

Almost everybody I can send it to will have already seen it, but I thought maybe you'd be interested.

Oh, and September is also National Sewing Month!

Enjoy the new episode of Warehouse 13 tonight!

Well, Children of Earth, the whole-third-season/mini-series of Torchwood, has finished showing in England. Us poor Yanks have yet to see it, but you can find out more about it here, and here. It will be on BBC in America starting on the 20th of July, and will run each evening for five nights.

I wish I could comment with authority on this, but I can't because I haven't seen it yet. It sounds like it will be chilling, though.

Shore Leave, the science fiction/Star Trek convention, continues through this weekend. I can't be there, but I'll be retweeting stuff in the side bar, so check back for updates, or follow me on Twitter by clicking in the sidebar under the tweets.

ABC Family will be showing most of the Harry Potter movies all weekend. The first movie, Sorcerer's Stone  is about halfway through as I write this, so get on over there if you don't have the DVDs, or if (like me) you can't watch them because the input for DVD on your TV is broken.

Sorry there isn't some knitting input today. I'm finishing up some boring stuff that's not worthy of photos or conversation, but I'll be finishing up a neat project later today, and starting another project later today, and both of them will be photo and discussion worthy, so there will be more to see soon.

Hope you're having a great weekend, and that the weather where you are is as stunning as it is here!

Steve Canyon Review!

I've been waiting for this new review of the Steve Canyon DVDs to come out, and it's finally here! And it was worth the wait! What a great review!

I'd love to take some of the credit, and I guess I helped, having done the covers (I did the colorization of the photo above), but the real hero here is John Ellis, who wanted to do this project, and is managing to do it against great odds in the form of a failing economy. He's my hero! He let me know about all of this in a hit-and-run instant message today.

Please notice the name dropping in the form of Rick Sternbach, who designed a lot of the art for the more recent Star Trek TV series, and was co-author of Star trek, the next generation : technical manual / written and designed by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda ; with a special introduction by Gene Roddenberry. And please notice that he's the first person to comment on the blog article.

I was lucky enough to meet Rick years ago, when John and I were at MonCon doing advance publicity for the first Star Wars movie. John and I were on our way to see Forbidden Planet, and Rick said he envied me because I was going to see it for the first time. And well he might. It's an impressive movie.

The photos in this post are phenomenal, too, for any fans of Air Force hardware in the form of planes! Planes are one of my favorite things! The photos in this blog post are great!

I have to take a short break and calm down before I continue writing.

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I don't know if you have noticed, but I now have Twitter posts in the sidebar, so you can get instant updates throughout the day, and during times (like yesterday) when I get distracted with other things and don't post, and days when I go to the Sheep and Wool Festival or the RenFair. The box with posts has a time-traveling slider on the right, so if you miss something, you can go back and see it. If you only check it once a day, you may miss some stuff, because I'm finding I update frequently during the day. So, now there's a reason to check this blog several times a day (or follow me on Twitter--click the link at the bottom of the Twitter box).

If you're on Twitter, it's Follow Friday, so there will be links to neat Twitterers, today, too. If you're a knitter, there are some recent links to spinning/knitting contests with some great prizes, and links to some more science fiction info, too.

One of the contests is the Berrocco Sock Competition. This sounds like fun! Click the link and check it out!

There's another contest going on for the ABC series, Castle. I know it's not SF, but it stars Nathan Fillion, who is always worth watching, even if he's not playing the captain of Serenity anymore. Check it out here and below.

As you can see, the entry deadline is soon, so you'll need to get busy!

I think there was another contest or something important that I've forgotten to tell you about, but put it up on Twitter. Check the sidebar!

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I'm sure I had ten other things I wanted to say, but Eureka is on SyFy all day and the new second half of season three will premier tonight, so I want to get back to watching it.

Have a great weekend!

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Addition:

It's Harry Potter weekend on ABC Family starting tonight. They'll be running a batch of the movies, and in case you've forgotten, Half Blood Prince is opening on Wednesday! Only five more days to go! And the countdown timer at the bottom of the page has a link to more HP information at the bottom. Check it out!

Fun Saturday

Holly and I went out together yesterday, and I, for one, had a wonderful time!

First stop was Borders, where I got my own personal copy of Beedle the Bard. I brought along coupons for both of us, and we each got a bargain.

Holly bought a collectors edition of Beedle through my Amazon store, and it arrived this past week. I wanted to see it, but she said it's so big that she didn't want to bring it along.

We stopped in Michaels to get the rest of the yarn for the stockings. I found the beige yarn for Santa's face, but they had none of the red yarn that I started using for the main color of the stockings. I tried to order it from JoAnn Fabrics over the internet this morning, but their website (although it will accept the order), will not let me pay for it and finish the sale. I've bought from them over the internet before, so I don't know what was wrong. I tried to call them, but they won't be open for phone orders until tomorrow. There will be more stocking info later in the post.

We went to the WalMart that actually has things for sale so I could get what the local WalMart didn't have. My sister who works at a different WalMart says I should complain to them, and once I figure out how to do that, I will. I keep hoping that they'll fix the problem on their own, but that really isn't happening.

The other WalMart has Caron Simply Soft Eco, and I got some for a scarf/mitts/hat for someone (who shall remain nameless at this point) for Christmas. They had several beautiful colors to choose from, and this is what I got:

That the start of the Just Enough Ruffles scarf, which you can see if you belong to Ravelry.

A while ago, I completed the cuff for another Santa hat, and just hadn't taken a photo, so here it is:

I am liking my Santa hat so much (even though I haven't made the pom pom at the top yet) that I thought a friend of mine might like one, too, to show his Christmas spirit. So, this will be made in his favorite color.

Then there are the whole pile of projects that are knitted, but need some Kitchner stitch and ends darned in and they'll be finished (except for the few that need blocking).

I plan to spend the daylight hours finishing these and then getting back to the Christmas stocking.

Here's the hood for John M, finished except for kitchnering the top of the hood, darning ends and blocking. It's so close to done, it's a shame not to finish it today.

I've been meaning to buy a light so that I have adequate light to knit by for the last two years, and at some point I'll get around to it (translation: have the money to get one or two). In the meantime, I'm reduced to waiting for daylight to finish projects that need light to see for finishing details.

And now, back to the first stocking. 

I found some gold metallic yarn for the star on the top of the Christmas tree, even though you can't see it here. I'm about to start on the furry part of Santa's hat. The intarsia (multicolored knitting on the top of the stocking) is the slowest part. Once I'm past that, the foot will go quickly. 

At this point, it's accumulated so many loose ends on the back that it's difficult and time consuming to handle, so some of the ends I'll be working on today will be on the back of the leg of the stocking. You can see a very small amount of the ends at the bottom of the photo. I've added a hem to the top of the stocking so that it will have a lot less tendency to roll.

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While I'm sitting and knitting this afternoon and this evening, I'll be watching all three of the Librarian movies on TNT (Quest for the Spear, Return to King Solomon's Mines, and the new one, Curse of the Judas Chalice), followed by Leverage, which sounds like it will be good.

For those of you not so inclined, I hope you're getting to see the Harry Potter movies on ABC Family. They will be showing Goblet of Fire this evening. and working up to them with earlier movies all day.

I hope you're having as much fun this weekend as I am!

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PS  When I was leaving yesterday, there were a whole batch of people arriving to decorate a Christmas tree on my floor of the apartment building. When I got home, there was a bag of candy and Christmas greetings on my door. This is an amazing place to live!

The Librarian just started. Got to go!