The Internet (or Maybe Comcast) Hates Me!

Actually, all communication with the outside world is having a big problem here.

My phone, my cell phone, and my computer all started having problems the other day. I've been trying to fix my phone, my cell phone, and my computer, and then it struck me that all of those three have one thing in common. They're all plugged into the internet.

Since Comcast has created nothing but problems for me with my TV connection, Occam's razor says it's probably them.

I am so fed up with Comcast! And they've made it practically impossible to even report the problem since all my communication seems to depend on them. I really have to find some other way to contact others! I've set my cell phone to not connect to the internet over WiFi, and it seems to be acting a bit better.

Holly says there's a way to reset everything on my phone to factory settings, but I can't find it anywhere or I would have tried it already.

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So, after spending a little time trying to get to my email today, I found a link to this in my inbox! If you click the link, you'll find that Craig Charles spilled the beans, and that there will be another six episodes of Red Dwarf! All I really know is what's on the web page, so I can't really comment except to say that it's the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV, even funnier than The Middleman, and that's saying something!

In with the same email, there was a link to a story about a new show called 17th Precinct, which will be a new science fiction show. Once more, I don't know anything except what's on the page from the link.

I saw a trailer for Medium on last night, and they said to tune in tonight for the series finale. I'm really sorry to see it go!

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Usually, the knitting content comes first, but this time it's last. Sorry, I'm struggling just to get something up here, and it's not easy.

I went to the library on Wednesday, and picked up a fairly new knitting book, Modern Top-down Knitting.



 It's got some really interesting things in it, and it's a must-have if you want to knit dresses from the top down. There are seven slim, pretty dresses in this volume, including the dress on the cover. There are a couple of cardigans and a few pullover sweaters, too.

All these things make sense for knitting from the top down. You can try on the dresses and sweaters and make changes as you go to make the garment truly fit you. That's the whole point of top-down knitting.

But there are a batch of other projects in here that don't make sense to be knitted from the top down, and some that aren't knitted from the top down at all. They're mostly accessories, and while some of them are nice, and I even love a few of them, I feel they should have been saved for another book, and the space they're taking up should have had some more top-down designs.

There's some knitted jewelry, including a ring, plus a belt and a wrap (which obviously can't be knitted from the top down) that are wonderful and innovative, but not top-down. There are some interesting hats, which don't benefit at all from being knitted from the top down. There's one hat which I'm not too enthusiastic about knitting, but would love to own in several colors! She uses pipe cleaners to stiffen the brim.

That's the Annie Hat from the book, the one with the pipe cleaners in the brim.

She also has a beautiful wrap, which is, once more, not top-down. I was going to show you a photo, but can't, due to computer problems.

The author, Kristina McGowan, obviously comes from a sewing background, and applies lots of designer detailing to her patterns. Some of it is useful and welcome, but some is just extra work for nothing. For instance, if you sew a skirt or dress, the hem is a raw edge unless you finish it with something. Hem tape or stretchy lace is great for this. It's really completely unneeded for the same purpose when finishing a skirt or dress that's knitted, though. Yes, it can be a pretty trim that nobody will ever see, but why bother?

She is also really big on binding off, adding a bit of crochet, and then picking up stitches and continuing. Once again, what is the point, except for make-work? Then again, you needn't do any of these except the ones that are actually needed for the design.

One thing I've noticed, is that some of the directions are shown right-handed, but a lot of the photos of sewing and crochet are shown and described for a left-handed person. I'm not sure why they're mixed up like that or if it was intentional, but that's the way it is.

 I'll try to keep posting, but if you don't hear from me for a while, it's because of the communication problems.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Knitting Update!

I know.

I go through phases. Sometimes, all you get out of me is science fiction stuff, and lately, all I've talked about is knitting. But I have more knitting because I'm trying to finish some projects and get on with the Christmas present knitting.

First of all, we have a partially finished neckwarmer in Bernat Mosaic yarn (colorway is mosaic). This looks a little odd at the moment because I've gone crazy for patchwork, and I'm knitting  a section in one direction, and then picking up stitches and adding another shape in a different direction. I started with a band around one end to establish a size and with a matching border at the other end, too, it will look a bit more finished, planned, and less haphazard.

This is slow going because the yarn is less even and more thick-and-thin than I first thought, and even though I can work out how many increases and decreases at the edge of a given patch will give me the right shape, it means that I may have to pick up more or fewer stitches to match up. So, I frequently do it wrong and wind up ripping it all out. I'm going to use some yarn in either off white, or a very pale grey to whip-stitch over all the joins between shapes.

There will be a hat and mitts to match this, and then I will finish the Celtic sweater and I'll have some things I can wear together to look good, even though it will be too cold by then to wear them as outerwear. The neckwarmer, hat and mitts will work with a coat, though, and that's why I want to do them first.

Since this is the third time around for the Celtic sweater, I just want to get it done!

After all that, I'm going to get back to the hood I started for Jeff. You may recall that the Mosaic yarn hadn't arrived, and I wanted something to knit, and instead of finishing something that I'd already started (which would be sensible), I chose to start a whole new project. Being even earlier into my patchwork phase at that time, here's what I have so far on the hood:

I want to get some chocolate brown yarn to go with this for some patches, and some more of the lighter brown. So, it will have some patches that look like Fair Isle, and some in solid shades of brown. For the lighter solid colors, I plan to use simple textural stitch patterns like the seed stitch shown to set off the Fair Isle look. I found some really nice medium blue yarn that I'm going to use to whip stitch the joins in the patches. I think this is going to look really fabulous when it's done! It will also get a matching patchwork hat and mitts for a complete set.

After all that, I'll be switching to Christmas stockings for all except Malaia and John because I already made stockings for them. I've been collecting sparkly yarn in various colors that are popular with my family and friends, and can't wait to make stockings for everyone.

Besides, if I make something else for each person, I can stuff them in the stocking and not have to wrap them!

Then, it's onward and upward with just finishing projects that I've already started!

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For all you non-knitters out there, if you're thinking about obtaining Christmas presents for your friends and family, I can make custom knits for them! Yes, folks, I'm trying (once again) to make some "extra" money so that I'll have enough to continue being able to eat through the end of the month! So I'm very open to creating a fabulous one-of-a-kind item for Christmas gifting.

Some ideas include: Christmas stockings, a Doctor Who scarf, almost any knitted garment you've seen in a science fiction movie or TV show, a Weasley sweater for a Harry Potter fan, a rune bag with runes knitted in, or almost anything your imagination can come up with. Some of the Christmas presents I have planned to make are: a pair of stigmata mitts with a matching crown-of-thorns hat, and much more.

Exercise your imagination and have me make something truly spectacular for a loved one!

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The new season of Sanctuary starts tonight on Syfy! There's a new episode of Supernatural, too, and an episode of Medium which may or may not be new. It sounds a lot like one I've seen.

Tomorrow night, BBC in America will be rerunning episodes of Torchwood, and I'm wondering if that means that they're building up to the new season.

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Franklin has done it again, and put up the funniest blog post of his that I've ever seen. You have to check it out! Somebody asked him for help in retouching a photo.

Have a fabulous weekend! I'll be spending the weekend knitting, and you may not hear from me!

Happy October!

The weather outside still feels like summer, although there's a noticeable chill in the evening air, but it's now officially October.

When I was a teenager, this was the time of year when you actually needed a Winter coat. Global warming is probably not something you notice if you're currently a teenager, but if you've been around like me, you can't miss it!

This month includes Octoberfest and Halloween! The TV stations will start airing their spooky shows, building up to the end of the month. I, for one, can't wait!

Tomorrow is also the Fall Fiber Fest, and it's been raining for most of the week. OK, so it's sunny today. After attending the mud fest they had a few years ago after only two days of rain and one sunny day, I have serious doubts about attending. I talked to Holly last night and told her that although I'd like to go, I have serious doubts about the ground out there, and if she doesn't want to go, I won't be upset with her about it.

Later on in the month, Holly has a knitting retreat, and a project she has to knit for it. And even later in the month, the Renfaire is over, and we're hoping to squeeze in just one more visit.

It's going to be a busy month!

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Tonight, we have brand new episodes of Medium and Supernatural, and an episode of Human Target that may or may not be new. I know it's new season is starting soon, but I'm not sure if this is it.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Sad Thursday

I got up yesterday, and almost immediately, the TiVo I ordered arrived! I was going to link to information on the one I got, but they're not available anymore, and I got one of the last ones. There's a new model out instead, but that's not what I bought.

This was both good and bad.

Good because it arrived, and bad because it and my TV don't have any connectors that are compatible.

As I've probably mentioned before, the RCA plug inputs on my TV are broken, and the only input to the TV is now coaxial cable. The TiVo has no coaxial out, only RCA plugs, S-video and a couple of other connectors. But since none is coaxial, I can't plug them together.

The tech people at TiVo told me that I need an RF Modulator. They said I could get one from Radio Shack for $10. Well, it turns out that's true and not true. They do have one for $10, but it's not available on line, and very few of their stores have it. The listing said to not even bother to go to the store without checking beforehand to make sure that the particular store had it.

I checked with Amazon (and some other places), and found some very basic RF modulators for as much as nearly $200. But I also found two really neat ones on Amazon that are available for somewhere between $20 and $25! Actually, if I had known about RF modulators, I would have bought one long before now.

The two I saw have 4 input sections (which accept several different kinds of input) on the back with an RF (coaxial cable) out to the TV, and four buttons on the front so that you can push them and switch between the different inputs! So, I can plug in my DVD player, my DVD recorder, and the TiVo, and I can not only use the TiVo, but I can watch DVDs again! The very idea makes me so happy!

But, unfortunately, I don't have about $30 or so to spend on a modulator plus shipping, so I'm going to have to wait until next month to be able to do all this.

I'm not usually a sad person, but for some reason I don't understand, spending all my free money this month on a TiVo and then finding out I can't use it until next month is making me so sad, all out of proportion to the situation. I don't know why, but I think it's me, and not the situation.

So, I've been amusing myself by reading the instruction book that came with it. If it works the way it says, it'll be amazing!

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I'm still thinking about and working on (mentally) the Lion Brand Yarn Imagination Contest. I keep thinking there must be a winning idea somewhere in the back of my brain. If there is, it's been doing a great job of hiding from me. I've been looking for information I don't have in hopes it'll spark an idea.

But you might be interested in checking it out.

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Well, at least there is some good stuff on TV tonight.

Stargate Universe is on SyFy right now and has been all day and will continue into the evening with a new episode which will be followed by a new Merlin.

There will reruns of Medium (CBS?) and Supernatural (the CW) on toninght, too.

Not much, I know.

Buck up, July is coming, and that's when all the good stuff will be back. And I'll have my TiVo up and running just in time! Can't wait!

Have a fabulous Friday and a wonderful weekend!

National Procrastination Week!

Finally, there's a holiday, or in this case, a special week set aside for people like me.

Actually, National Procrastination Week started on Monday, the first of March, but then, what part of procrastination didn't you understand?

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There's a new Ghost Whisperer and a new Medium on network TV tonight, and a new Caprica on SyFy.

Have a happy weekend!

The Very Last Dollhouse Is Tonight!

Well, as you know, Fox has gotten rid of another fabulous Joss Whedon creation, and tonight is the very last episode of Dollhouse.

I doubt that Fox will be generous enough to rerun them, so tune in tonight for Armageddon! If you've DVRd them and still have them, go back over the last few episodes.

Tonight, we're out of the Dollhouse and into the real world, and it's going to get nasty!

This is the episode they were filming when Eliza broke her arm! She tweeted about it as she was leaving the hospital, wondering if they could cover the cast with wardrobe. She only had the very last day of filming left to finish it completely. We'll see what happend.

We also have a brand new Ghost Whisperer (on at the same time as Dollhouse--I hope you have a DVR or TiVo!), and Medium on CBS, and a new Caprica on SyFy! Immediately following Caprica, SyFy will be rerunning an episode of Warehouse 13, which is always a treat, even though a rerun!

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One order from Knit Picks arrived on Monday! I got the book from Holly for Christmas: Continuous Cables, and my copy of All New Homespun Handknit! I have a copy of the original Homespun, Handknit (somewhere), and it's one of my favorite knitting books. Even in projects that I'm not interested in making, there are so many slick and easy ways of doing things that it pays to really read the patterns. I've looked through the new Homespun, and there are projects that I like, and some that I love! I haven't had enough time to really read through the whole thing, but I already found one slick tip: how to make a crochet provisional cast on, which, when unzipped, leaves you with all your stitches on a lifeline, so you don't have to pick them up as you unzip it! That's almost worth the price of the book right there!

Soon after I placed that order, I realized that I'll be finishing the Christmas presents soon, and will then need something to knit, so I ordered the yarn for Holly's sock and some light grey Palette for a wimple for me, and there's probably enough of it for mitts, too. That order arrived yesterday, but I lost track of time, and didn't realize it was after 4:30, and too late to pick it up. I got it today, and it's all ready to knit, and the first thing I did was cast on with the new provisional cast on I learned from my new book.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that in the new Knit Picks catalog, they have cable connectors, at last! Add a pack of them to your next order if you use Options Needles! They mention that you can use them to make extra long cables, but you can also use them to substitute a different size cable for the one you're using in your project. Just unfasten one tip, add the size cable you want to switch to, put the tip you just remove on the other end, and pull it through your work. Then, remove the old cable and put the tip from the old cable on the other end of the new one, and you're done!

All that has me happy with Knit Picks, but I submitted a design for their designer program, and they turned up their nose at me. It was the hat that I made for my friend's daughter.

OK, so they don't have eyelash yarn available, but the basic design doesn't have to be made that way. Anyway, I plan to write it up (and do a few more samples) and publish it myself. New pattern coming up!

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The weather people are saying that it's going to start snowing late tonight, and on into tomorrow, and I'm wondering if I need to go out and get any supplies today. Then again, maybe it would be fun to walk around while it's snowing. Actually, I don't think I need anything, but I need to go assess the situation.

The overcast that's happening now, and the snow that will be happening later are going to make it impossible to view the first full moon of the year, and the best one we can expect all year! I'm disappointed!

I have lots to do, so that's all for today!

Have a fabulous weekend!

TGIF!

As you can probably tell from the title, this post was actually posted on Friday, but Blogger messed up!

Let me get you all caught up on what's been happening around here.

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Tuesday, I went back to the dentist for what I thought was the last time. I was almost right about that.

He gave me a shot of Novocaine, removed the temporary front teeth and filled a cavity on a tooth next to the ones he was replacing. The cavity was so small it was almost nonexistent, and now that I know that, I wish he'd skipped the shot.

He then put on the new caps, so I have my permanent caps at last. I can now bite into a sandwich or cookie if I want! I'm planning to get some corn on the cob next time I go to the supermarket.

At this point, the area that the shot affected is not hurting as much, and in a day or two (hopefully) I won't be able to feel the ache anymore.

I have to go back in two weeks just so that they can check out how the new teeth are working with my existing teeth, the alignment, etc. There may be a few minutes of adjustment, but that's all.

Corn on the cob! I've missed it!

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Wednesday was a nightmare of trying to get my computer to work properly again. John was an enormous help, and after reloading the last upgrade to the system, some of the problem seemed to be fixed. My browser still wouldn't open. I tried to use Software Update to update it, but it said I wasn't connected to the internet, and I couldn't do it. Then it asked if I'd like to update my software. I said yes, and it informed me that I had a big problem with my browser and asked me if I'd like to fix it. I clicked yes, and it's fixed. Well, it's still a little slow and glitchy, but at least it works somewhat.

I still have some other programs that I have to repair or replace before I'm back to where I was before it all crashed.

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Thursday I saw the doctor again. She told me that I need to do more walking, and I told her I've been discouraged about doing that because I feel so bad after even a little walking. She looked at me like I was crazy.

So, after thinking about it for a bit, it finally occurred to me that if she thought it was that weird, maybe there is something wrong. She thinks I'm not getting enough vitamin D, and I'll be getting a test for that. I should mention that I'm taking lots of vitamin D supplement, but the gastroenterologist did say that I probably have big problems absorbing certain kinds of nutrition.

I went to JoAnn Fabrics and (finally!) got the yarn for Everett's Christmas present!

Yes, I know how late it is.

Getting to the store involves what is a lot of walking for me, and I felt terrible last night, and still feel like someone beat me up yesterday. I had planned to go to the post office today to return the yarn I bought that looks very different in real life than it does in the photo, but in light of how I feel, I think it's going to happen Monday instead.

I feel bad enough that I don't intend to be on the computer for very long today. I just hurt everywhere!

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There's a new post on the Steve Canyon blog! John recorded a new interview for the next and last of the Steve Canyon DVDs! All the information on it is on the blog. It's very exciting!

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January is Thyroid Awareness Month! I see people all around me almost all the time with very obvious hypothyroid symptoms, and their doctors insist that there's nothing wrong with them and won't even test them, so I feel that this is an issue that people need to know more about because I can promise you that your doctor doesn't know much about it. And if that doctor is an endocrinologist, he probably knows even less about it than a GP, but thinks he knows everything (from my personal experience), and therefore won't listen to anything you have to say.

By the way, there was a study done where they sent out questionnaires to patients with hypothyroidism, and they discovered that, out of patients who had hypothyroidism for two years or more, 95% of them knew more about hypothyroidism and it's treatment than the doctors who were treating them!

The problem with this is compounded by the really bad tests available for it, and most doctors' misinformation on the subject of thyroid testing. Not only are the tests bad (as in not giving accurate results, especially the TSH), but what's considered "normal" is skewed so that it misses all but the worst cases. If the drug companies can keep you sick, they can sell you osteoporosis, cholesterol, and other medicines and make more money from it.

Check out the symptoms here, and if you suffer from many of them, see your doctor! If you actually do see your doctor, print out the list, and check off all your symptoms. He probably won't listen to you unless you do that.

Wow! I just read that list and I have 41 of the symptoms! I knew that I wasn't getting enough natural dessicated thyroid because Armor Thyroid (which is what I'm taking) was reformulated about a year ago, and although the stated amount of hormone is in each pill, the filler that they changed makes it difficult or impossible to absorb the medicine, and everyone who's been taking it has had hypothyroid symptoms. I'll be switching to Naturethroid as soon as the drug store gets it in, and that should solve the problem or at least help the situation. But I didn't realize how bad it really was!

If you have many of the symptoms, check the sidebar for more info.

And don't let your doctor prescribe Synthroid! Ask for Naturethroid or West Throid! Or even Armor Thyroid, once it's available again. They're reformulating it again to make it the same as it was before last year. Doctors keep telling me that some people get along fine on Synthroid, but it's really hard for me to believe because I feel so bad when I take it. Taking Synthroid is like being short on sleep every night. When you fist take it, it's an improvement, but over time, you just feel a little worse every day until it's even worse than not taking anything at all. Switching to Armor Thyroid was like waking up from a nightmare for me!

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Sanctuary has been on SyFy all day today, and there will be a two hour season finale on tonight!

The next-to-the-last episode of Dollhouse is still scheduled to be on Fox tonight according the electronic TV guide on Comcast, but somebody on Twitter was tweeting that it will be bumped to put on a program about the earthquake in Hati. So, at this point, I just don't know.

Other new episodes on tonight include: Ghost Whisperer and Medium.

Tomorrow, BBC in America will be showing the Doctor Who episode The Shakespeare Code, and a new episode of Demons.

Have a fabulous evening, and a wonderful weekend!

Hi! Sorry to ignore you for the last two days, but I've been busy trying to finish up the Christmas presents.

Yes, I know how late it all is, but they're not done yet. Once I finish them all, I plan to start knitting for next Christmas almost right away.

Anyway, I have to get back to finishing them and, more important, packing stuff up to go to the Post Office.

I apologize to almost everyone. I've been trying to get to the post office for two weeks, now, and there's been either bad (snow, sleet, ice) weather, or intense cold accompanied by gale force winds! Since going to the post office involves waiting for a bus (and it seems that when I come home, they always have a bus out of service and I have to wait for at least an hour and a half) and a lot of walking. Please note that when I'm leaving, there are places to sit and places to get out of the wind and cold, but on the way back, it's out in the open with no place to sit, so that's where the bus doesn't come.

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I hope you all got to see the Chuck Marathon last night!

Here's a list of SF stuff that will be either premiering or coming back to TV all new in thee next few months. Enjoy!

There will be a new Ghost Whisperer, Medium, Sanctuary and, best of all, Dollhouse tonight! Only two more Dollhouses to go after tonight!

Have a great evening, and a wonderful weekend!

TGIF!

I've had a week full of getting up early or earlier than usual, and I just want some sleep!

For all you knitters out there, here's a collection of great patterns to make Christmas gifts. These are, for the most part, smaller projects that have lots of WOW appeal. If you don't see what you like, click on one anyway because each project has photos of other projects below it that are good ideas. One of the links is messed up, but if you click random other links, you'll find it below the featured pattern.

If you dig a few layers under all the links they provide, you'll find the Cinchy Hat, which I think would look great in a solid color, too.

Oh, and there are other pattern links on the side. I like this page so much that I'm putting a link to it in the sidebar.

There are only 35 days until Christmas!

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For any of you that live in the LA area, there's a Serenity and Firefly convention this weekend! There will be stars from the show! Enjoy! I envy you!

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I went to the Comcast meeting yesterday. It was basically to sell stuff to the people here. The representative didn't know anything about TiVo for use with Comcast.

She said I had to call and talk to a representative over the phone. I did exactly that, and found out that if I trade in my Scientific Atlanta DVR for the newest Cisco model, I'll get a more reliable box, and a hard drive that's several times larger! Since the box is free, I'm leaning toward that option at the moment.

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The usual (mostly) Friday night line up is on tonight. We have a new Ghost Whisperer and Medium on CBS, new Sanctuary and Stargate Universe on SyFy, and new White Collar and Monk on USA. That should keep your DVR busy!

Have a great Friday night and a wonderful weekend!

Back from the Sheep and Wool Festival

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend! There's so much to tell that I won't be able to do it all today, so you'll be getting more of the story this week.

For starters, here's some of what I bought while I was there: 

First up is the bone lucet shown above. Wow! a lucet that's nice. And it's made of bone. The distributer is Lacis, and the place I bought it is Carolina Homespun, which has always been one of my favorite places to shop at the festival.

For those of you who don't know, a lucet is a device used to make cord. It's essentially a two pronged knitting frame, similar in effect to a knitting nobby or a spool knitter to make knitted cord. You can see a spool knitter here, but you have to scroll down. With a spool knitter, the tension is determined by the spool, by how far away the nails are. With a lucet, you pull each stitch up snug, so it produces a much firmer cord. 

The cords are useful as drawstrings or laces, and a lucet is a handy thing to have around. One of it's big advantages is that it can fit in a pocket, along with a small ball of yarn that can make many yards of cord. It's a very handy walk-around project, something to take with you to fill idle moments while producing something useful at the same time.

Susan's Fiber Shop had a complete lucet kit with a plastic lucet for sale at the festival, and I should have grabbed it while I had the chance. I'm intrigued by the idea of the bobbins, especially since they keep the yarn from sliding off the fork. The same lucet with bobbin is now available in wood, so don't worry about me calling it plastic.

Susan's is my favorite shop at the festival. She always has something new, and she always has the greatest stuff, and she spends most of the weekend while she's there teaching. There's usually a small group of people standing around blocking things up and watching here demonstrate stuff. Just ask her how to spin, and you'll find yourself at a wheel with a handful of wool before you know it. Or ask her how the combs work and she'll show you.

Anyway, in the next photo, the two big batches of fiber at the top are four ounces each of wool/tussah (80%/20%) from Bullen's Woolens. They're hand dyed, and I'm thinking about making a single of each color and plying them for a combination of purple/blue yarn. I think it's going to work well.

Under the wool/tussah, is some 100% silk yarn that I bought from Mangham Manor, although it was made by Oasis Yarn. It's called Seduction on the label, and all you have to do is touch it to understand why they named it that. There's a whole 100 grams there, and I'm not prepared to say at the moment what I plan to do with it.

More festival tomorrow.

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Today is the first post of the brand new Craft Corps News blog. I've just discovered it (thank you, Vicki Howell!) and haven't really had a chance to explore it, but it looks like it may be fun. Enjoy!

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Doctor Who has been having adventures with Rose all day on the SciFi Channel today.

Chuck and Heroes are over for the season, but there's a brand new, two hour episode of Medium on tonight.

More news tomorrow! Have fun 'till then!

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Addition:

My sister sent me an email. It said:

It was once said that a black man would be president "when pigs fly." Indeed 100 days into Obama's presidency...... Swine flu!

Score One for Stupidity!

In a spectacular display of stupidity, Texas has decided to make sure it's school age residents are unaware of the age of the universe.

Read more about it here.

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I was looking at some of my blog posts from earlier in the week, and realized that I had said I would post a photo of the finished mobius hood.

Then I finished it, took a photo, and posted it on my Ravelry projects page and the page for FOs on the Harry Potter House Cup page.

And I completely forgot to post it here.

So, for those of you who are waiting with baited breath, here it is (finally).

I'm thinking I still have to do a little bit of tweaking before I'm really happy with it. I like it, but not a lot. I'm not overjoyed about the photo, either.

I have decided to give myself a day off on the Christmas stockings.

The first one is completely knitted, sewn up, and woven in. It still needs an overall blocking (looks like a crumpled piece of paper at the moment) and pom poms plus a hanging loop added.

I'm going to wait until I block the leg on the second one, which is easier to do before I start knitting in the round. That way, I can block that part of it flat. That way, I can put off having to make pom poms.

I have finished the name and year on the second one, and am almost to the icicles between the "snow" on  the top and the actual red part of the ankle with the tree and Santa on it.

I may get back to it later today if I finish the poncho I'm making with the yarn that matches the hood, above. The yarn looks very plain, and like a solid color in the photo, but it's really a "printed" yarn in off white with blue dots of varying intensity (along with some tan ones) on it. It looks tweedy in the ball, and I thought it would look that way knitted up, too, but no, it's visually a light blue, even though you can't see it in the photo. I liked this yarn when I bought it, but I like it even more now.

Anyway, it's almost finished, and the kind of weather I wanted to wear it in is suddenly here, so I thought I'd finish it and have it to wear. I'll probably finish it this evening and get back to the stocking.

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There will be new episodes of: Chuck, Heroes, Medium, and Castle on Monday evening!

Well, it's probably over 80 degrees in my apartment again, and almost like a sauna in here, so I'm going to sit (or maybe lie down) and read a book.

Hope you're having a great weekend!

107 Days Until Half Blood Prince

There are 107 days until the premier of The Half Blood Prince!

For all you Harry Potter fans out there who are knitters: have you started your knitting projects so that you'll have something Harry-Potter-themed to wear to the movie? If not, you need to get started in time! You don't want to go to the movie without your Dobby socks, dark mark scarf, snitch sweater and other stuff. It's a shame it'll be during the summer instead of in the winter like some of them have been.

If you're on Ravelry, search there for Harry Potter projects, otherwise, you'll have to use search engines. Whatever you do, there's a lot out there, so get those needles clicking!

Don't forget that there is a count-down timer at the bottom of this page. It not only tells you how long until the movie, but it also has a link to Mugglenet, which is filled with all sorts of wonderfull Harry Potter news!

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Which reminds me that I have to have my mobius hood finished today to turn in as homework for the Harry Potter House Cup KAL/CAL! All I have to do is weave in some ends and take a photo. Oh, and get it up on Ravelry. 

So, you can expect a photo tomorrow.

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This will be a short post. I've just finished putting the barcode on the cover for the second volume of the Steve Canyon DVDs, and I'll be uploading it to a server in a bit, so I can't hang here too long. I may be wrong about this, but the sense I get from it is that John has all the files and stuff he needs to dump it on the DVD manufacturer, and it's about to be out of his hands for a bit. I'm sure that will be a big relief to him. Then all he'll have to do is wait for the DVDs and feverishly ship them out when they arrive. 

I'm really enthused about this!

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Comcast messed up NBC all last night. This is so run-of-the-mill for them that you may wonder why I'm even mentioning it. For three hours on NBC (and maybe more--I only watched it for three hours), the picture would periodically freeze for from one to 5 seconds, sometimes followed by the picture breaking up into large pixels, which then smashed up and slid off the screen. The sound was going in and out, and the story was interspersed with blackouts of sound and picture for several seconds. I got to watch Chuck, Heroes and Medium in that messed-up way. Castle was playing OK, though, and at least I got to see and hear that without all the mess.

There is no Fringe on tonight, but it's supposed to be back next week. I don't know what's wrong with TV networks today. They only have short runs of shows (Star Trek used to have 25 shows per season, now we only get 13 episodes of a series if we're lucky), they interrupt them with other stuff rather than showing the whole series, change the times of shows, and generally do everything they can to sabotage their own series, and then get rid of the series as though it's the fault of the series. It's disgusting!

There will be a new Mentalist on tonight, along with a new Reaper, though.

I have to run.

Have a great Tuesday!

Happy Monday!

Well, in the last 24 hours, my mobius hood has exploded from something that looked just a little longer than it did the day before to starting to look like a real hood!


It doesn't look in the photo like it would fit as well as it does in real life. Well, I did some shaping on the hood, and I still have some doubts about this project. I think it's really turning out nice, so far, though.

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For those of you who don't know, the SciFi Channel has discovered that they can't trademark/register/copyright/whatever the term "SciFi." So they have embarked on a journey to find the perfect new name for their network. They have chosen SyFy as their new name. I read one report that insisted that they chose it because that's how they would spell it in a text message.

First of all, I doubt that they can't trademark it. Blaster, and a lot of other basic SF words were successfully trademarked in the past, which seems really silly to me. Unless someone else has already trademarked it.

Io9 has some really funny articles about this. The first one I saw was named SciFi Channel Changes It's Name to a Typo, and it was just an announcement of the change. The second one, 25 Other Names the SciFi Channel Could Rebrand With was funny. My favorite on the list was "Sci-Fi Except For All That Wrestling Channel," although I also liked "Zzzzzzzzzy-Phy."

Then there was a post called "15 More Alternate Names for the SciFi Channel," which continued the funny theme. One of my favorites from this list was the "I Cant Spel But I Kin Txt Chanel."

Here's what SciFi has to say about the name change in their own words. The theme that keeps repeating is the idea of "a name we can own." There was also a poll on your opinion of the new name in the sidebar. I voted against it, but it seems to be gone now. I can't find it on their site. But when I voted, the score was something like 157 for and over a half million against. I suspect they took it down because they didn't like the general direction in which it was headed.

But they are doing something good tomorrow during the day. They have reruns of Eureka on! On Wednesday, there will be episodes of Tru Calling on their daytime rotation, too.

This weekend, actually Friday evening at nine (here) they're showing Stargate: Ark of Truth for all of you, like me who haven't been able to scrape up the money for the DVD, even though it's not very expensive.

I suspect they're doing that to make it up to us for showing Beowulf last weekend. I didn't think anything or anybody could mess up a fine, classic, Icelandic saga as badly as Grendel, but Beowulf gave it a run for it's money.

NBC will be showing their usual Monday night science fiction shows, Chuck, Heroes, and Medium, and we'll be treated to another episode of Castle at the same time as Medium. The Monday night lineup is currently good for all old Firefly fans because we can get to see both Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin! It's just a shame Castle isn't science fiction (or fantasy).

Well, there's lots to do today, so I'd better get going.

Have a great day!

Steve Canyon Front Cover Announced!

John announced the front cover of the new Steve Canyon  Volume 2 DVD! We've been working on it, and finally got to a point where we agreed that it was done.

The back cover is also finalized except for some possible last-minute changes in the wording of some of the text, and the disk labels are almost done. Well, except for the front cover, it's all almost done.

John has been working so hard on this. I will be really happy when my part is done so at least that part of it will be out of his hair.

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I've been working hard on the first sock from the yarn I bought at JoAnn Fabrics. The heel flap is done, the heel is turned, and I've picked up the stitches for the gusset.

I actually got further than that last night, but then noticed the sock had a hole in it. I must've missed knitting the last stitch on the heel flap, and it started to unravel, thereby freeing all the stitches that had been picked up for the gusset. 

Usually, if you drop a stitch, you can just latch it up, but it was a column of stitches that had the gusset fastened to them, and the whole sock was unraveling! So, I knitted a whole lot last night, and then had to frog almost the whole heel and start over again.

I'm still very ambivalent about the colors in this, but I have to say it looks very Spring-like. And I have so few socks that I'll be wearing them even if I don't like them. I don't really dislike them, but I haven't gotten to a point where I like them.

The sock pattern is wonderful, though, and I'll write it up and post it here soon. It's a very plain sock pattern, but really makes comfortable socks. If your goal is comfortable socks, this is the pattern you want.

Have a great evening and enjoy Chuck, Heroes and Medium!

Happy Monday!

I spent the day riding around on buses and walking a lot while doing errands. It was back to WalMart for me, so that I could get the vitamins I didn't get while I was there with Holly. And, as usual, WalMart had a lot of things that I didn't realized I needed. 

I had been thinking the other day that I needed a stapler, but didn't want to spend the $15 or $20 for a good one. Wally had one that never needs staples and stamps little blue stars around the non-staple. For $4! And now that I've writen about it, I realize that is wasn't in any of he packages when I got home. I'll have to look again.

But the true monarch of impulse buying is Dollar Tree! 

I was in there a bit more than a week ago, and bought, among other things, a dishtowel which I discovered was very nice when I got it home and started using it. So, I went back for more, and found lots of stuff that I really needed or was going to buy somewhere else. I keep hearing good things about Robert Jordan, and had planned someday to buy one of his books, but they had the first book in the Wheel of Time series. So, that was one of the things I came home with.

What a busy day!

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I hope you had a chance to appreciate Dead Like Me, which was on SciFi during their daytime rotation today. Tomorrow, they'll have Haunted, the Matthew Fox cop show where he can speak to ghosts due to a near-death experience. If you watch closely, you'll see him sporting part, but not all, of the tattoo that he wears in Lost!

Tonight we have Chuck back with a new episode! Followed by new episodes of Heroes and Medium, all on NBC.

Have a great evening!

Hold onto your Hats!

There's a full moon tonight!

Just thought you might like to know.

Maybe that explains the unseasonably warm weather we've been having,

New Heroes and Medium tonight!

Enjoy it all!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Also, for those of you so inclined, happy Imbolc! According to Wikipedia, it's a time of weather prognostication, so maybe that's where we got groundhog day. 

I don't have a groundhog, but if one where here, he would see his shadow, which means 6 more weeks of winter. It's supposed to rain this afternoon, so maybe if the groundhog slept late, we might have an early spring. Then again, it may be different where you live. Individual results will vary.

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Doctor Who is on all daytime on SciFi today, and you just missed Blink! But there are two more. Sorry I forgot to mention that yesterday. No Lost tonight.

But, tonight on NBC, they'll be bringing back Chuck, Heroes and Medium! And Chuck will be in 3D! Get your free 3D glasses where they sell Pepsi products.

Have a great day, and I hope Spring comes soon!

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PS--Crazy Aunt Purl was doing her usual crazy thing and speaking about the new year yesterday. She claims that 2009 is really almost 2010, and that tickles her for some reason. She's turned off comments, so I feel justified in commenting on her post here. 

It got me started thinking. In a few years, it'll be 2020, which, I suppose, should be voted the year for good eyesight.

Click on the first link and you can see today's post, which I won't spoil by describing it here except to say that it includes a sort of porn.

High of 56 Degrees!

The bus company around here is all mixed up.

Right now, the weather report I just looked at says the high today will be 56 degrees, but that it is currently 60 degrees. It always makes me giggle when they do this. Oh, and there is glorious sunshine, and I plan to go out when I finish this.

Anyway, on a beautiful day like today, the buses aren't running. But tomorrow, when we expect rain, the buses will be going full force. At least it will be warm tomorrow. Tuesday, when I'll have the money to do my errands, it will be snowing.

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For any of you Medieval fans, please check out the sidebar for Designs Toscano. They just sent me an email saying that I haven't sold anything through the link, so they're going to cut me off.

If you are interested in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, please check it out. They're a great company and have stuff I know you'll love and want to buy. No kidding! My ex-husband used to work there, and bought me this from them for Christmas one year.

They always have a dozen things I want!

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On Monday evening, Chuck will be back and NBC will bring back Heroes and Medium, too. The interesting thing about Chuck is that it will be (ornate fanfare). . . in 3D! The reason I'm telling you about this now is that to see it in 3D (rather than a blurry mess) you'll need 3D glasses. It took me a bit of searching, but I eventually discovered that all this is because of Superbowl Sunday (which, for you non sports fans, like me, is today).

It turns out that the Superbowl will have a batch of commercials in 3D, so lots of places are distributing 3D glasses free. The ones I got were from Safeway, and some CVS stores are also distributing them. The distributers of Pepsi have out a drink I've never heard of before, and you can get the glasses almost anywhere that distributes Pepsi. They come in a sheet of 4 and you can punch part of them out, but you have to cut some of it out. So you have to take the whole sheet.

The SciFi Channel had Lost listed for all evening on Monday until a few days ago, but they've changed their minds at the last minute, and reruns of Lost will not be on SciFi on Monday.

I'm going to go out and enjoy the day! I hope you have weather as nice as mine so you can do the same!

Snowed Under with Work

The world seems to want to make sure that I have good grasp of the meaning of the word Entropy.

The last definition of that is more what I mean in this context: "a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration."

The world seems to be determined to keep messing things up for me, and usually on a financial basis. Well, sometimes on a health basis, or, as one of my current problems, something that broke, but is going to cost me a lot of time and effort (and probably some money) to fix. More about that later.

The IRS, in it's logical fashion, started taking money out of my monthly Social Security payment last year to satisfy a debt that was a bit over $500. They took over $300 out of my payments, and then decided that since they owed me enough to pay the rest, that  they'd stop doing that. But instead of applying it to my account, they sent it to me. So, now they say that it means that I owe them almost a thousand dollars.

I spent some time discussing it with them today. The outcome is not happy, but better than what they originally planned to do to me.

I've been trying to get in touch with the VA Hospital near here to get one of the hearing aids they gave me to use fixed, and probably return the other one due to almost total hearing loss in the other ear. The part of this that's really frustrating to me is that I'm pretty certain that the hearing in that ear could be improved tremendously, and possibly restored completely, but the last person I saw about it (an ear, nose and throat specialist at the VA Hospital) said that there was nothing wrong with my ear and then asked "So, why can't you hear?" Which was kind of the question that I came to him to answer.

I'm getting really tired of doctors asking me the very questions that I came to them to answer. 

But you can never get through to the hospital on the phone. You just get to leave a message and wait by the phone all day to have them call you back. It's frustrating.

Tomorrow I'm going to work on getting something done about my front teeth before I don't have them any more. Or maybe later today if I get a call back and am not worried about making a call and missing the call from the hospital.

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I also have two projects that need to be done.

One is the Christmas stocking commission. That's going well. I'm almost through the colorwork on the leg of the last stocking, which will leave some very easy knitting, and then some finishing work.

The other one is the cover for the second volume of the Steve Canyon DVDs. I have a lot to do on that. The cover photo was taken in color, but the only surviving copy of it is black and white. And while the scan of the photo is excellent, the photo itself is covered with dust, dirt, and scratches. 

So, there's a lot of restoration work before I can even apply the colors and make it into the background for the cover.

And I haven't even designed the inside cover yet. Not to mention that there has been no decision made yet about the photo for the back cover.

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Now on the happy news! The science fiction shows that were off for the holidays will be returning soon, except for those casualties of the networks.

On the 31st of January, G4 will be running a Heroes marathon, pretty much all day.

On the second of February, we hit the jackpot, at least as far as NBC is concerned. 

Chuck will be back with an opening episode in 3D! That means that you'll need special glasses to watch it and get the 3D effect. I can't find any information on the internet about where NBC expects you to get these glasses, though.

Heroes will be back the same night, too! You knew there was a reason why G4 would be running a marathon!

Medium will also be back the same evening.

Later, at a date I haven't been able to pin down at the moment, the long-awaited premier of Dollhouse is coming up for all you Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku fans.

Fast forwarding to March will bring us the premier of Castle! For all you Nathan Fillion fans, he'll be starring in it, and that's enough for me. But it looks like it has the potential to be a great series, too. Nathan will be playing the role of Rick Castle, a fictional famous author of crime and horror novels. Rick helps the police solve crimes.

In the more immediate future, the SciFi Channel will be running random episodes of Lost tonight. They've already caught up to the the premier of the show last week, and are just running through some highlights.

NBC will be showing the second half of The Last Templar at 9 tonight. It was listed for last night, but I didn't realize that it was a mini-series and that they weren't just showing the same movie again tonight. Woops!

And Wednesday night, of course, we have an episode of Lost from last week followed by a new one!

It's almost 5 pm, and the Hospital still hasn't called. I doubt that they'll be calling me back this late, so I guess I can stop carrying the phone around with me everywhere I go.

Have a great evening!