Holly and the Doubters plus even more Star Wars

I got a phone call from Holly last night, and she was feeling a little down because she happened to mention to some people the work she had done on John's movie Twilight of the Dogs (which was later released as New Genesis by a "distributing company" who shall remain nameless, but who were obviously a covert branch of the CIA, and felt that they should keep any videos they were "making available" a deep dark secret).

The reason mentioning it to some people was making her sad was that they didn't believe her!

So, for all you doubting Thomases out there, here's official notification. Holly did, indeed work on Twilight! Holly did some voice work as one of the children who were dancing and singing near the end of the movie, and she did some rotoscoping of special effects wherever Gage fired her alien pistol.

That's Gage above, with her alien pistol, and the fabulous costume that Nancy Handwork made for her to wear in the movie.

If that's not enough proof for you, you can check out John's blog about his current project, Steve Canyon on DVD. Check the sidebar to talk to him on iChat (or AIM) or leave a comment, and he'll get back to you. If you like Steve Canyon, check the blog anyway, because he put up a new post fairly recently. And, just so you doubters know, I did the art for the covers for the DVDs. And the last one will be coming up soon!

I love the Steve Canyon blog, but I think that John should put up his own blog, because the Steve Canyon blog only covers one of the incredible things that he's doing! And I've been sworn to secrecy because there are several things in the works that are still in negotiations and haven't been settled, but I think I can say with confidence that there are big, exciting things that will be happening for him soon. I've already offered to help him in any way I can because it sounds like this is going to be a fun ride! And when did I ever turn down a fun ride?

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Just when I thought I was through with Star Wars as a subject for my blog, Tim Davis put more photos up on Facebook! So, here I am with more photos and stories.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away. . .

There was an electronic genius named Tim Pace. Tim enjoyed science fiction and Star Wars, and he made a little 'droid named R2D2

That's Tim Pace on your left, and Tim Davis on your right, and, of course, R2D2 in the middle.

And the little 'droid went on a trip to Washington, DC, and had his photo taken on the mall.

That's Bruce Rauscher on the right, posing as Luke Skywalker, and I'm afraid I don't know the princess who was with him and R2.

He got there in the wonderful, amazing, science fiction van that Tim also built!

Left to right: That's Tim Pace, Bruce Rauscher, R2D2, and the incognito princess.

Here's R2D2 and Tim Davis, also out on the mall.

And, finally, R2 all on his own.

That R2 unit could roll around all on his own (with a little help from radio control) and make beeps and all the other appropriate sound effects!

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As mentioned before, it's no longer sweeps month, and consequently there's nothing on TV tonight!

That's right, really nothing!

Tomorrow night, The Vampire Diaries will be followed by Moonlight on the CW, both reruns, but better than the nothing that's on tonight! That will be followed on CBS by The Mentalist (also a rerun).

All that will be followed by Burn Notice and Royal Pains (both new) and White Collar (rerun) on USA. For once, the stations have spaced things out so that you can watch each of those shows live and in the order I've listed them. I know Royal Pains and White Collar aren't SF, or even spyfi, but they're good and worth watching.

It's the middle of the week! I hope you're having fun with this week! I am!

Good Friday

Happy Good Friday to all those of you out there who are celebrating it.

I really intended to post yesterday, and never got around to it.

One of the things I wanted to say then was that Vicki Howell is having another contest! So get on over there and enter to get one of her books. I already have!

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I finished the leg on the second Christmas stocking, and also the first of two socks from the yarn that I bought at AC Moore. I have been using it as a carry-around project while I was working on the Christmas stocking, which is not something I want to try to knit on the bus. I need to cast on for the other sock so that I'll still have a carry-around project.

The stocking, by the way, still needs a couple of ends darned in and then it's switch to knitting in the round, when it will be a mindless project like the sock. In fact, that part of it is exactly like the sock.

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I'm starting to get excited about the Sparkly Shawl (see Wednesday's post). The yarn is in the mail, and I think the new crochet hook I ordered from Etsy is probably on its way by now, too. Now all I need is the beads. There's always tomorrow for that. 

Holly was sick last week. Her voice sounded bad over the phone. But she's feeling much better now, and we plan to go do something tomorrow. I'm hoping to get beads. She sounded pretty outraged that I would want to drive all the way to Tyson's Corner, which is where Beadazzled is, so I guess we might go to the new bead store in Occoquan. If not, we'll probably stop at JoAnn Fabrics. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing all the beads in the store that I have been thinking about and/or considering for the shawl.

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I hope that any Moonlight fans out there got to catch it on the SciFi Channel last night. If you missed it, there is another one on tonight.

There's also a new Dollhouse and a new Ghost Whisperer.

Usually, around Easter time there are some Biblical movies on, but there's nothing this year before Sunday, and you'll have to look to find them.

Have a great weekend!

Still Hangin' in There

The earache hung on for all of Wednesday, got a bit better yesterday and is back again today.

But I did get out and get my new phone.

The old one was doing fun things like: a half hour after I ended a call, it would make a little alert noise and inform me that it had just ended the call. That's happened five or six times. And it leaves me wondering if I used up 2.5 to 3 hours of minutes that I didn't actually use. I don't know.

So, I got a new T-Mobile G1. It's got some wonderful features that make it easier to use than my old Sidekick 3, but some features that leave me wishing for the Sidekick. I was able to transfer all my phone numbers to the contact list on Google, and it uploaded them to the G1 in about a second after the service was connected and I'd switched the SIM card to the new phone. 

It also uploaded my calendar from Google, which means that almost all the work of setting up a new phone was done before I even started. And the good thing about the calendar is that it opens to the month view every time (because I set it to do that), unlike my Sidekick which would give me a note that said "No upcoming events in the next 7 days" instead of letting me see a calendar.

Switching the SIM card was not as easy as it might have been. You need to apply an excessive amount of force to remove the back the first time, which you need to do to switch the card. I called Holly to see how to remove it, and she assured me that I was doing the right thing, I just needed to be a bit more assertive.

It has some great features, though.

It can pinpoint where you are and give you directions from your present location to any address you care to type in. Well, it does if you're in a 3G area. They put in a 3G network in DC, and continued it out into the suburbs to just about 3 miles short of where I live. It still works fine as a phone, and does very well with the internet, but I know from using Holly's phone that it does even better on a 3G network. Once it knows where you are, it can give you a local map or a satellite photo of the place you are, which can be useful if you're looking for a place that's nearby and can't figure out how to get there.

It has a free application that will let you take a photo of a barcode on an item in a store, and tell you how much it is, plus let you know the prices of the same item in nearby stores and online.

I downloaded a free application that will let me record a sound and make it into a ringtone. I can't wait to make my phone sound like the middlewatch from The Middleman! If you liked that link, search for "Middleman" on YouTube.

One of the things I don't like about it is that I can't pair it with my bluetooth headset. Holly's had hers now for at least 4 months, and she still can't get her bluetooth headset to communicate with it. She said it found and started talking to her computer almost instantly, but there's nothing the two of them can do together. 

She'd much rather have it talk to the headset. 

So would I.  

The instructions in the manual (and online) just don't work. I'm going to have to call them and ask them how to do it.

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There's a new Ghost Whisperer on tonight, and, of course, a new Dollhouse. SciFi will be showing a rerun of Moonlight, always worth watching, as well as Battlestar Galactica.

TNT will be showing The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the weekend, starting tonight with The Fellowship of the Ring, followed tomorrow night by The Two Towers, and finishing Sunday evening with The Return of the King. If you're busy on Friday or Saturday evenings, you can catch the whole trilogy on Sunday, starting late in the morning.

Have a  great weekend!

Inauguration!

Yesterday, Washington DC was standing room only!

No kidding!

All of downtown was filled with people to the point that there was only room for them to stand. Well, you know that if you watched the inauguration on TV.

Holly said she looked at the photos of the crowd and was floored. 

I looked at them and something in the back of my brain said "That can't be right." I found myself checking landmarks, thinking that they couldn't be taking those photos where it looked like they were, and it must be someplace smaller. But no. Downtown DC was literally standing room only!

And the commotion extended all the way out to here in Northern Virginia (or NoVA, as the natives refer to it). I was at PRTC (local bus company in PW county) headquarters in Woodbridge, and watched big buses leaving in a constant stream with big signs on the front that said "FREE RIDE DAY." They were headed to the Metro. For people going to or coming from DC on the Metro, buses were arriving at the Springfield station and leaving every minute, apparently all day. I didn't know they had so many buses. The only thing to or from DC yesterday was public transportation. Which was probably a good thing. After all, where would you park?

The local buses were not free yesterday, though. Which I found out since I rode around on three buses yesterday. I took four trips, but caught one of the drivers on the way back on the same bus.

After watching the actual inauguration on TV, I pulled myself together and took the bus to the station and took another bus to Comcast to straighten out the mess. It's not totally straightened out, but at least they're not planning to turn it off at this point, and I can not only watch TV, but blog and use the internet without fear of sudden disconnection. I caught the same bus on it's way back to the station. I've been riding the bus so much that I'm beginning to know all the drivers.

Yesterday, the temperature did not get above freezing at any point. So, I was amazed to watch our new president take the oath wearing a business suit. His only concession to the cold seemed to be warm gloves. I can't imagine how he avoided freezing, but he did look spiffy.

I watched the proceedings on Channel 7, and Holly watched it on 4. We compared notes later and discovered that we had seen very different things because of the way that it was presented. One of the things that I missed, but Holly filled me in on was that he was sworn in with the same bible that Lincoln was sworn in with.

Since I spent my day riding around (it was well after dark by the time I got home), I missed the parade. Holly says that despite the strong resistance of the secret service, Barack and Michelle got out of their bulletproof limo and walked for a couple of blocks, and then did it again for a shorter distance later.

I have been around Washington, DC, one way or another ever since 1964, and I have never seen such a wild frenzy here. I wasn't crazy enough to go downtown, but stories of friends are filtering back to me. It's awe inspiring.

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I'm halfway through the leg of the fourth stocking. This is what it looks like from the front.

This is what it looks like from the back. Please note that I have darned in the ends from the colorwork at the top. The ends from the name and date, and the ends from the edge between the white of the "snow" and the red of the body of the stocking. The mess you see here is just from the tree and Santa designs.

This is why I don't like to do colorwork. I can't just knit. 

I have to keep stopping to count. And cut new lengths of yarn for a new color section. And wind bobbins. Then unwind parts of bobbins so I can knit a few more stitches. And periodically stop completely and spend an hour untangling the mess and darning in ends because the yarn ends have gotten too unmanageable to continue unless I do. 

Once I get past the colorwork on the leg, the rest is simple. Just knit. Well, and there's some shaping, too, but that's easy. And it doesn't require untying a bad tangle and darning in ends.

Actually, I took the photo a while ago, and in the meantime I've darned in most of the ends and gotten further. Only one more complete stocking to go!

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Haunted has been on the SciFi daytime rotation all today, and Doctor Who will be on Friday's fare. Those episodes will include Tooth and Nail, and School Reunion, which show the inception of Torchwood and the beginning of The Sarah Jane Adventures, respectively.

Which reminds me of the Leverage episode last night. They suddenly find they need some aliases, and they go through "Sylvester McCoy" and decide on "Tom Baker" and his wife, "Sarah Jane." Who says they don't have a sense of humor?

SciFi is starting two reruns on it's Friday night line-up starting this week. Look for Invasion and Moonlight on Friday.

They're both good series.

Invasion is about a first contact situation during a hurricane in Florida. It started on the air right before Hurricane Katrina, and was interesting because you could watch a hurricane aftermath and clean-up both on a TV show and on the news. The show was far more bizarre. Kind of Hurricane Katrina meets the pod people. Although it was very good, it ended after the first season, and they didn't have a chance to wrap up the story successfully, so it was very disappointing that way. I want to watch it over again, though.

Another really good show that ended after the first season was Moonlight, about a vampire private investigator. It starred Alex O'Loughlin as the most likeable vampire ever, Mick St. John. This one is beyond description, it's so good. You really need to watch it. They didn't get a chance to wrap this one up successfully, either, but it's easy to assume that they just went on with their lives (or undeadness). Invasion never got a chance to tie up the loose ends that really needed to be resolved.

I was very unhappy when each of these shows ended.

But the really BIG news on TV is the premier of Lost tonight! This is what everybody has been waiting for!

Enjoy!

I know I will.

And don't forget that Burn Notice will be having it's premier Thursday, too, on USA!

Oh, and Dragon Sword will be on SciFi on Saturday.

Check local listings!

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After riding around on all those buses yesterday in sub freezing temperatures, with a 20 mile-an-hour wind with who knows what kind of chill factor in order to pay my Comcast bill, Comcast thought it was necessary to call me today and ask if I'd like to make a payment. This is just another example of their substandard everything. I wish I could change to another provider.

Oh, well, it's supposed to go above freezing tomorrow, and I might even go out voluntarily under those conditions. I still have money on the Michaels card that Malaia and John gave me, and I'm thinking about using it for some sock yarn. Yes, I really want to take a break from knitting Christmas stockings with knitting socks! Even though it sounds crazy. I also have to get busy on the photos for the cover of Volume 2 of the Steve Canyon series. Busy, busy, busy!

Have fun with Lost tonight and Burn Notice Thursday!

Dollhouse

Here is my towel from earlier today, when it was 14 inches long. I will add 4 more inches, and then I will do about 3 inches of border and bind off.

I originally thought I wanted a towel that was 30 x 40, but after seeing how big 30 inches is, I changed my mind to 20 x 30.

Actually, my gauge is a little off so it will be 20 x 32. But that's the nice thing about towels. Precise size isn't essential.

The big news today is something I found on Ravelry.

Joss Whedon is working on a new series. For fans of Firefly and Buffy, that's a cause for celebration.

The new series will be called Dollhouse (more info here), and stars Eliza Dushku as the heroine, Echo. Her IMdB page shows what we all know, that she was Tru in Tru Calling, and Faith in Buffy. She was also the daughter in True Lies (one of my favorite movies).

The SciFi channel is having all three Indiana Jones movies both Saturday and Sunday. Right before the series on Saturday, they're showing Timeline, which is an excellent movie, but an even better book.

Timeline, the movie bears little resemblance to Timeline, the book. You have to adjust your mind-set if you want to watch both of them.

After the three Jones movies on Sunday, they'll be showing Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, which seems to be (judging by the trailers), a bit about the actual archeology that the new movie is based on.

And Holly has notified me that the Cartoon Network will be showing the Family Guy episode about Star Wars on Sunday evening, followed by Robot Chicken, which is also a Star Wars episode. She says both are hilarious.

And, of course, Sarah Jane, and Doctor Who will both be on SciFi tonight, at the same time as the season finales of Ghost Whisperer and Moonlight.

And Prince Caspian opens in theaters today!

What an exciting weekend!

This was intended to be mostly a knitting blog, but the science fiction people have overwhelmed me this weekend.

Have a fun one!

Firefly! And SF Update!

Next Friday, the SciFi Channel will be showing Firefly during it's normal daytime rotation. They will be starting from the beginning and getting as far as they can in the time alloted.

When I first watched Firefly, I liked it until I got to "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Then, I loved it!

Then the next episode was "Jaynestown!" "Jaynestown" was (in my opinion) the best episode of the series. And it will be the last episode that they'll show next Friday, so you'll get a chance to see it.

They will not be showing The Message which is the one that all the knitters want to watch. This is the one where they pick up mail, and Jayne gets a hand-knit hat from his mother. It's awful!  It's an earflap hat which hasn't been blocked, so it's curling up, and the ends haven't been darned in, and it's yellow, orange and red. And Jayne loves it and wears it for the rest of the episode.

Anyway, for you knitters, you should record them. In several episodes, Wash wears sweaters with cables that are fabulous! You'll want to go back and see stills of him wearing the sweaters.

Tonight, on SciFi, they'll be showing two more episodes of "The Sarah Jane Adventures," The second part of "WARRIORS OF KUDLAK" and "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SARAH JANE - PART 1." Sorry about the caps, I copied it directly from the SciFi schedule and that's the way they had it.

That will, of course, be followed by Doctor Who with "PLANET OF THE OOD." If you're a fan, you'll remember that we ran into them before in "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit."

Next Friday, after Firefly, in the evening, they'll be showing two more Sarah Jane, and the Doctor Who episode will be "THE SONTARAN STRATAGEM."

This evening, CBS will also be showing a new "Ghost Whisperer" and "Moonlight."

In the meantime, on Monday, SciFi will be showing "Jake 2.0" during the day. The best episode they'll be showing is "Double Agent" in my opinion. SF fans will love the inside jokes.

I should have taken my books back to the library yesterday, but the rain was pouring down all day, and I was not happy about walking over there. There were flood warnings for my area last night. It rained, and rained, and RAINED! There were also tornado and severe thunderstorm warning for surrounding areas. Yesterday was a bad day weather-wise. Today it's raining a bit off and on. 

I've added a weather pixie to my sidebar so you can see what the weather is like around here. Actually, it reports the weather at the airport at Fort Belvoir, Davison Field. I love going past that airport! There are choppers of various descriptions and Lear Jets going in and out frequently. Especially the choppers.

I'll have to pull myself together and return some books.

I just finished reading the series by Angie Sage that starts with "Magyk." It may be a kid's series, but it's awfully good.

In knitting news, I finished the bind-off for the poncho, and am now picking up stitches from the provisional bind-off around the neck for the hood. Photos soon.

Have a great weekend!