Stargate SG-1 All Day Today!

SyFy is the "Stargate SG-1 all day, all the time" network today! And they seem to have picked out the best of the series, too. If you've just caught onto the marathon now, you've probably missed a lot. Episodes include Wormhole Xtreame, Window of Opportunity, Urgo, Crystal Skull, The Nox, and more! There are several two-part episodes, especially Mobius.

And while we're on the subject of TV, Dollhouse will be premiering on Fox tonight! Also, we have the season premier of Ghost Whisperer! I can't wait! And the return of the cancelled Medium!

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Two other things that I haven't been able to wait for are coming up tomorrow and a week from tomorrow!

Tomorrow we planned to go to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I say planned because the forecast for the area it's in is showers all afternoon, and Holly already had a bad experience with rain at the Ohio Renfair.

I knew we were in trouble last night when the weather guy on TV said that there was rain in Ohio and it was headed this way. Unless we have an amazing miracle, I'm bracing myself for disappointment. Either we'll go and get rained on, or we will miss it entirely tomorrow.

We do have another trip to the Renfair scheduled for around the middle of October, so we do have one more chance, but that's then and this is now.

Next weekend, though, is what I'm really starting to get psyched about! It's the Fall Fiber Fest! Yaaay! I really can't wait for this one! My monthly income will arrive the day before the fest!

I have lots to do to get ready, so I have to go, but I wish you a fabulous weekend!

Coping

I had a whole other post in mind for today, but came across some information that I think everyone should have access to in these troubled economic times. As I've said before, I don't want to call this a recession because it's really a depression. If you don't believe me, read up on what happened during the Great Depression. We're currently missing the dust bowl, but that's the only major difference between what's happening now and the Great Depression.

Anyway, I found a whole website devoted to dealing with the current depression. It's called Recession Wire, and the particular post I started with was this one, about how to deal with being laid off. Some of the information seems to apply to people who have lost a job, and anyone else who needs some extra income. Check out the link for Discounts for the Unemployed. At the bottom of the list, "Government Money for Your New Career" seems like a winner, but only contains some very general information, with no starting point for where to look, and no links to more information. 

And I just found another one of their Just-Laid-Off Checklists. This particular one is less about concrete steps you can do to make some money, and more about how to deal with the emotional impact of a lay off or being fired. And believe me, this part is every bit as important as making more money.

Each of those posts has a list of related posts at the bottom of the page, so there's a lot of information there.

If you belong to a subscription service like Google Reader, it might be worthwhile to add them to your list of blogs to read.

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I don't know if I mentioned this on my blog, but there's a sweepstakes currently happening on Twitter, and today is the last day to enter (moved up from the 10th). The final prizes will be awarded tomorrow at 10 am Eastern Daylinght Savings Time (I think). They are/were giving away 10 MacBook Pros, one a day. But they made such problems for Twitter that they've decided to give all the remaining ones out tomorrow. So, if you have a Twitter account, check here for more information.

And while I'm on the topic of something for nothing, check out the Family Dollar 50 Days of Giveaways. It's possible to win a car or an extremely large screen TV as well as many more prizes. And if you enter and don't win, it makes a very sad sound.

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I ended up my weekend pretty late last night after having spent most of Sunday watching movies on TV and knitting. Unfortunately for the knitting part, I noticed late in the day that I'd dropped a stitch early in the day, and it had ruuuuunnnnn! I'm a big one for fixing mistakes like that, but this was such a disaster that I wound up frogging almost everything I did yesterday and starting over almost from scratch.

The movie watching was fun, though. I saw: Live Once, Die Twice; The Avengers; and Independence Day.

Live Once, Die Twice was a good thriller to watch once. Unlike some movies that I want to see over and over, it was pretty much finished when it was over, but it was an enjoyable one-time shot.

The Avengers tried hard, but it had a lot to live up to, and just didn't manage to succeed. In the New Avengers, Joanna Lumbly wasn't Diana Rigg, but she was good, and she had Patrick MacNee to work with. But neither of the stars made me care about them or like them very much. I enjoyed the supporting cast much more than the stars, Eileen Atkins as Alice, a machine gun toting little old lady agent was the hit of the movie. And Jim Broadbent made an excellent Mother. I was especially interested in him because he'll be playing Professor Slughorn in the new Half Blood Prince movie. 

I guess Independence Day doesn't really need a review because everyone must've seen it by now.

Off the topic of movies, but still in a science fiction theme, don't forget that Warehouse 13 will be premiering on what will become (tomorrow) the SyFy Channel. This premise has the capacity for total failure or completly fabulous. I'm hoping for fabulous. And I'm prepared for a slow start. SG-1 was OK when it started, but it took a little while before it really hit it's stride. So did Babylon 5, one of the best thing that's ever been on TV. Blakes 7, however hit the ground running!

Well, my DVR is full, and I need to catch up on the knitting I flubbed yesterday, so I'm going to run.

Have a great week!

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Addition:

I found this great article about a newly-found black hole that's different from all the others, and I thought you might enjoy it.

Progress Is Slow

Well, I'm below the waist on the Celtic Sweater, but haven't done the sleeves yet. If I had been able to finish the sleeves and get just a little further, it would be a race to the finish, but I haven't and it isn't.

I finished the front part of the pocket on the right hand side. 

As you can see, the pocket opening will be at an angle. I think that looks good on most people, and it seems to help keep things in the pocket rather than spilling out onto the floor.

There is a simple, narrow cable forming the edge of the pocket. On the right, you can see just a bit of the cable for the front.

I am finding more and more reasons to love the Options needle I have. I've bought a set of size 8 points, and several lengths of cable, and they are wonderful!

The two front sections each get knit in a separate piece, and the back, sides, and pocket linings get sewn in another piece. Normally, I would put each pocket lining on a piece of yarn to hold it, but with the Options needle, all I have to do is take off the needle tips, and replace them with stoppers, and don't have to thread them onto the yarn, and later have to pick them up again. I love them.

I've shifted the points to the other project, the wimple. I want to finish at least one of the projects I started for the Ravelympics, so I want to get this done. And I want the 24 inch cable from it for the other front pocket piece. You can expect a photo of the wimple tomorrow.

In the meantime, the SciFi Channel has run out of current Doctor Who episodes, which has downgraded their Friday evening offerings.

There is still Joan of Arcadia, which is wonderful, and Stargate Atlantis, though.

Somewhere, yesterday, I read that SciFi has canceled Stargate Atlantis. Ah, yes. It was on Joss Whedon's blog? Yes, it was!

I'm not happy about the cancellation, but not as upset as I was about the cancellation of Stargate SG-1.

Not much else happening around here except for more and more forms to fill out (and the universe finding more and more ways to separate me from my money) and lots of knitting to do.

Don't forget that I now have yarn and lots of knitting stuff in addition to books in my Amazon Store. The various yarns have been selling out quickly, and you need to grab the bargains when you see them because they may be gone soon. There's lots of wool, including the wool I'm using for the Celtic sweater, and lots of silk.

Have a great Friday, and a great weekend!

Pennsic is Over, but the Ravelympics Goes On...

Well, Pennsic is officially over. There's just enough time today to pack stuff into the vehicle and get on the road before you have to be off the site.

And the trip home isn't always fun.

One year, we were so disorganized, that it took us most of the day to get ourselves packed and on the road. After a week out in the ragweed (to witch I'm allergic), I carried/moved/dragged a lot more stuff then I should have that day, and went to sleep in the back of the van.

Steve woke me up and told me that I would have to drive home because he was tired. Then he climbed into the back of the van, leaving me half asleep, disoriented, and whining "But where are we?" in the middle of a snow/sleet storm.

Well we were somewhere near Breezewood, but all I could do was drive out of the parking lot he had stopped in (after I tried to clear the snow/sleet off the windows) and keep driving until I saw enough road signs that I could guess where I was and figure out how to get home. There wasn't much visibility with the precipitation, and it was almost dark when we left Pennsic, so it wasn't really easy. 

So, this is the one day of Pennsic where I can feel smug because I don't have to drag an entire encampment home in a six or seven hour trip. Especially when I look out the window at what the weather's doing. It's not overcast. Overcast is bright and cheerful compared to the day outside my window. It's raining, and it looks like it's going to develop into a storm any time, now.

Ooooh! Lightening! Yep, a storm for sure.

Well, so much for my plans to go to the grocery store.

But the Ravelympics is really just getting under way.

The wimple is up to a point where all the shoulder decreasing is done. I have pulled the needle tips off the Options needles in the wimple, and put stoppers on the cable. I'm going to have to go somewhere on the bus sometime this week, and it'll be a good project to take with me for the half hour ride (each way) to anywhere nearby.

In the meantime, I've picked up stitches around the bottom of the hood, and I'm knitting a band around it which will eventually have a button at one end and (when I get to the other end) will have a button loop knit into it.

Here is the hood with the stitches picked up.

This is something I should've swatched for, but couldn't really without reknitting the whole hood, which isn't something I was willing to do. 

So, I've ripped out the band twice, and I'm about to have a third try at it.

If I get too frustrated, I may go back to the wimple for a bit.

There are going to be two ribs from a 2x2 rib running around the bottom of the hood, and one rib is going to circle back and continue into the other rib at the end, making a buttonloop.

I bought some really beautiful buttons, but I've lost some of them since then. I have found some more on the internet, and I plan to buy them, but it's possible that when the Ravelympics deadline arrives, the buttons may not have. So, the sweater may not have all it's buttons at the end.

You can see the buttons here.

All the buttons down the front will be the same size, but I think the one that's going to be right at my neck may do better with one of the slightly smaller ones I bought at the same time. I'm glad I thought to buy some smaller ones. And I'm glad I was able to find them on the internet. They look so pretty with the yarn! 

I'm starting to love everything about this sweater!

Tomorrow and Tuesday, around 5 or 6 in the afternoon/evening, there will be the two-part episode of Stargate SG-1 called Mobius on the SciFi Channel. It's very good. And if you look at the schedule, you may notice that Charlie Jade is on every Monday night (actually, Tuesday morning).

The Sarah Connor Chronicles is back in reruns on Monday night, too!

I need to get back to another stab at the band around the bottom of the hood, so wish me luck!

Have a great evening!

Quick Post!

I have lots to do today, so not much time for posting, so this will be short.

Do NOT forget about the second half of the season finale for Doctor Who this evening on SciFi!

There will also be an especially good episode of Stargate SG-1 (It's Good to Be King) on a bit before as well as Joan of Arcadia.

Dragon Sword is on sometime this weekend, too, followed by Dragonheart, both great stories for children as well as adults.

I'll be fighting with my computer later this evening or tomorrow in order to make some knitting charts for one of my Ravelympics projects.

In the meantime, I need to get out of here and on the bus!

Have a great Friday and weekend!

Comic Con is Here!

Well, Comic Con is not here, but it's happening

John went last night. He said he thought it was supposed to be for people working at the con, but it seemed like everybody was there!

He also said that there's  a panel sometime today about Stargate SG-1 with Christopher Judge, Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, and more!

I wish I could go!

If I have John's schedule right, he won't be able to get back there until Sunday.

And thank, you John for your generous contribution to the dental fund.

Other than that, I have spent the day dealing with entropy, as I have for the past month.

The particular mess I've been trying to fix (mostly) today is ComCast Cable. They just keep creating tons of problems. I don't get what I've paid for, and they won't do anything to fix it.

In the past 24 hours, they've displayed a "weekly test" during prime time (they don't have to do it in prime time, but they'll probably do it again during prime time tonight), a weather warning that says to go to channel 21 for more information instead of channel 101, lack of closed captioning on ABC Family, and lack of sound on the USA Network (I won't be hearing Burn Notice tonight).

The problems with the weekly test have been going on all this year, the weather warnings have been that way for a year and a half (ever since I got ComCast Cable), and the closed captioning problems have been going on for more than a month. USA became silent just today.

ComCast insists the sound and closed captioning problems are the fault of the networks, even though they're broadcasting sound and closed captioning to every other TV provider.

So far today, after three complaints that brought no help from ComCast, I've also complained to USA, ABC Family, Saab (whose commercials are going out without sound) and the FCC. And then complained to ComCast again. And I plan to write down the names of all the advertisers whose commercials I can't hear during Burn Notice tonight and let them know about it, too.

ComCast wants to send out a repairman and charge me for it. My viewpoint is that I'm already paying for TV, why should I pay them because they don't just send out the signals like I'm paying them to do already?

I'm thinking about doing what one of the people at ComCast said to do on the phone: go over to their office and complain in person. Loudly. In front of other customers.

That usually works, but I have to take a bus to get to the bus that will take me to their office, and then do the whole thing in reverse to get home. It's about a four hour round trip. They're disgusting!

In fiberarts news, I spun some more last night on the bright blue merino for the Tour de Fleece, and blocked everything in the queue. The Shetland lace shawl is particularly nice. I didn't get around to taking photos before I became embroiled in the ComCast fiasco.

Fiberarts is my lifeline to sanity during all this chaos.

I hope you're having a better day than I am!

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Don't forget Tru Calling on the SciFi daytime rotation tomorrow!

It's Good to be King

Today, in the early evening, the SciFi Channel will be showing the Stargate SG-1 episode, It's Good to be King, which is one of my favorites. Actually, the episode before it, Sight Unseen is pretty good, too.

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Addition:

I went to the library yesterday and brought home a college course worth of  books on self publishing. I'll be busy for a while.

Have a great Tuesday!