Belated Oscar Notes

I watched the Oscars on Sunday, and noticed something very interesting. There was a woman nominated for best actress, and she looked so familiar, but I couldn't place her. Neil Gaiman tweeted about her, and things finally clicked. His daughter, Maddy was the one who put it all together. Carey Mulligan is the actress who played Sally Sparrow in the Doctor Who episode, Blink, one of my all-time favorite Doctor Whos!

Below, you can see how she looked in Blink, before she got her head mowed.

I love Sandra Bullock, and I'm glad she got an Oscar, but by the time they announced the winner, I was rooting for Carey.

Being a ground-breaking woman's rights person who campaigned by living a life full of things women supposedly weren't able to do, I was also happy to see that a woman got an Oscar for directing.

Some of the other awards seemed to go to the picture rather than the person, though. Maybe that's just me, and I can't really say that I could judge fairly because I didn't see most of the movies that had people nominated for working on them.

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The Legend of the Seeker will be back for a third season, although where it will be shown is still up in the air. Locally, I can watch it on the CW on Sunday nights, but if you're local, or watch it on the CW, you should know that they frequently list a different episode than they actually show (at least on the Comcast digital TV guide).

In the new show that was on last week (and, due to a mix-up, again this week), Zed has frozen some people and is describing them so that his crew can impersonate them. He describes the man as being "formidable." Richard says "He doesn't look like a fighter." and Zed says he's not, he's got a way with the ladies and describes him as "his reputation is not the only thing that preceeds him into a room!"

Lost is on again tonight! As usual, a recap of last week, and then the new episode. The recaps are excellent, because they add notes about things you might have missed.

The season finale for White Collar is also on tonight! It promises to be the best yet, which is saying something!

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Back near the end of last month, I ordered some great yarn from Herrshners. Everything seemed to go through just fine, and I've been running downstairs to check to see if it's arrived every day lately. Well, it's been a while, and I was starting to wonder what happened to the yarn.

At this point, I still don't know what happened, but it apparently didn't go through, and I'm very disappointed! It seemed to go through, and I got a confirmation email from Herrshners (which has since disappeared), and now that I go back and check for the charge from my checking account, it's not there.

I am very, very disappointed!

The worst part of all this is that I had a ball of it left from another project, and started knitting a project which will be a present for someone who reads this blog, so I can't talk about it here. But I've knit all the yarn I have, and have been waiting for the additional yarn.

This particular yarn has been discontinued, and I love the yarn, so I'm sad about that, but it is possible to find it here and there on line. I ordered some today, but it's not as inexpensive as what I originally ordered.

Back to waiting for it!

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I found a fabulous infrared photo of Cassiopeia on line today! You have to check this out!

Please click the link and go to NASAs website to find lots of other neat photos!

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I think today is the warmest day we've had here so far this year. I really need to get off the internet and get outside!

I hope things are going as well for you as they are for me!

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Addition:

Read about the knitting soldiers! His blog is here.

And the most important news of all: the second chapter of Jim Butcher's book Changes is out today! Changes is the latest book in the Dresden Files series and is due out in April.

Instant Workout!

I was still feeling bad yesterday from the trek to the Comcast office on Tuesday, so I really didn't want to have to get back on the bus and go to WalMart yesterday, but I really needed some things I was out of and couldn't get anywhere else.

So, after a few delays, I walked to the bus stop, and got the show on the road. Once I got at WalMart, I was armed with a list, and made good speed through the store and got everything I really needed.

Theoretically, I had just enough time to get to the bus stop to be in time to catch the next one.

I realized my mistake as soon as I got outside and suddenly knew I had miscalculated how long it would take to walk there because of all the piles of snow that were over my head. The parking lot itself was clear and easy to walk through, and the one patch of snow between me and the bus stop looked like it was three or four inches deep, so I thought I'd take a chance and walk across it.

I stepped onto some snow that had been packed down into ice and was about three inches deep, tested it for a moment, and got ready to take a second step, when the ice spontaneously changed to slush and dumped just my heel to the ground.

I fell over backwards. Unfortunately, not into snow or anything that would cushion my fall, but onto the paving. My back landed hard, but since my foot was stuck in the snow/ice, I was really describing a 90 degree arc, which saved my back a bit. Unfortunately, my head whiplashed and hit the paving at more speed than the rest of me, and so hard that it bounced!

I laid there, stunned for a moment, and then tried to get up, which was difficult because the snow (which seemed so shallow) now seemed to be propping my feet and legs up at a crazy angle, so I had to sort of crawl out of it to a level place where I could get my feet under me.

While I laid there stunned, the snow that was anywhere near me took the opportunity to start melting, so I wound up with my pants and mitts soaked and my coat pretty wet.

This time, I walked around all the piled snow, and got to the light where I planned to cross to the bus stop just in time to see the bus chug past. If I had left one minute earlier or if it had been one minute later, I would have caught it anyway.

But it didn't, and that left me with 40 minutes to wait for the next bus at about freezing temperatures, with a stiff wind, and partially soaking wet. Fortunately, the ground was cleared between the bus stop and Dollar Tree, which is right next to the stop, so I went in there for a while. I came out later and had only a short wait for the bus, and had an otherwise uneventful trip home.

I suspected I was going to suffer an aftermath similar to that time where my motorcycle had an argument with some gravel (and lost) and I wound up with a 750 pound bike on top of me. Here's a photo of the bike.

During the bike fiasco, I actually felt OK, but the next morning, when I woke up, I was in agony from pulled muscles, except for my left leg, which the bike fell on and protected.

I had a bit of a headache last night, and I do have some muscles that are very unhappy with me, but overall the damage is far less than I would have expected. For a very short while, I was hoping that maybe the blow to the head had loosened something in my ear, because I thought I could hear out of it for a while, but no, it seems it was just wishful thinking. This morning, though, the whole area around my ear hurts, the gland under it is swollen, and it's generally acting like there's a mild infection, but then, it does that anyway a lot of the time.

But I've given up on doing anything I'm "supposed to do" this weekend, I've declared myself officially "not feeling good," and I plan to read some books, watch some TV, start knitting my Knitting Olympics vest (once I do some charts for the cabling on it), and not worry about anything. So, I don't expect to blog tomorrow, and probably not Monday either. Tuesday is a bit iffy.

There is no serious injury, but I feel really bad! Like I had a very vigorous workout yesterday, and really wasn't used to it. I'm really OK, just hurting all over.

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I've been reading the Septimus Heap books, and I love them. I have the last one, Syren from the library and it's due back but I haven't even started reading it, so I want to do that ASAP so I can get it back to the library. Even if I had read it already, I do not want to walk over to the library to return it feeling the way I do.

This is a great series of kids books that adults will love, too, and I recommend them!

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Survivors is on BBC in America tonight! It premiered (in the US) last week as a single two hour episode. In case you missed it, I think that they're rerunning that as two one-hour episodes followed by a new one tonight. With all the talk about the new flu that they were afraid might turn into a pandemic, it's very timely, even though the original was done a while ago. If you read down, you'll find that it was (possibly is) being remade. I'm guessing this is the remake.

I really think everybody should watch a show like this because it makes you think about what you would do if you were ever in that kind of a situation.

Sunday night (here) we have last week's episode of The Legend of the Seeker, followed by a brand new one on the CW. Check your local listings for this one!

So, I'm going to take it easy and get better and have a great weekend.

I wish you a great weekend, too!

Shifting into High Gear for Christmas

Sorry! I feel like I've been neglecting you, but I'm shifting my previous efforts toward Christmas into high gear. We have only about a month left until then, which for knitters and crafters is getting to be last minute.

I'm also preparing a Thanksgiving post (which will go up on Wednesday) about some of my favorite Thanksgiving stuff. I'm putting it up on Wednesday because there are some people who will be away for the holiday, and I want to give them a chance to see it before then.

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I finished an absolutely gorgeous hat for someone last night using the Bernat Alpaca yarn in lavender.

It's just a little darker than it looks on my screen in that photo. The color is soft and beautiful, and it feels just as soft and cuddly, with just a little bit of fuzzyness. I really don't like yarn that's this thick as a general rule, but I love this yarn, and especially this color. They also have a plum color that's to die for, and a beautiful denim as well as other colors.

Considering that it'll be a Christmas gift, I'm going to take a picture (although not today: it's raining outside and dark in here), but that will not be available until after I give it for Christmas. Sorry, you'll just have to wait along with the recipient, and I'm not saying who that will be. I have finished knitting the hat, but although it fit my head snugly when I tried it on while I was knitting the critical part, now that it's finished, it feels a little loose, so I'm going to get some thin elastic cord and weave it through the area where a hat band would be to make it a bit more snug, so it's not completely finished. The hat is completely original, specifically for the person it was made for! And did I mention how beautiful it is? I may make a similar one for myself!

I'm busy making a hood out of the same stuff, for the same person. Then, I'm not sure if I'll make mitts or mittens to go with the set. I'm also considering the possibility of making a scarf in a way that will drive any knitter nuts trying to figure out how I did it. But I haven't made any decisions yet, except for what I'm already knitting.

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Some of the networks have thrown out their normal scheduling completely for the duration of Thanksgiving week, with SyFy leading that parade. They're having movies on instead of their normal daytime rotation all this week, with only James Bond movies on during Thursday and Friday. In a few cases, they're putting on movies that I previously wouldn't have expected from SyFy, so maybe they are trying to change their programming a bit. I personally thing they could stick to science fiction and fantasy and still expand their borders tremendously. Case in point, Grendel will be on again soon, specifically, Saturday at 11am (here), and on Sunday, we'll have the complementary Beowulf. I still can't figure out how someone could take such a timeless classic, and destroy it as thoroughly as they did in those two films. They beg to be on MST3K! The only was these films would be watchable is if you watch them with friends and either supply MST3K-like remarks or have to drink a shot every time Grendel uses his "scud missle."

There are some new episodes on tonight on Heroes (NBC), The Big Bang Theory (CBS), and Castle (ABC) as well as the usual Monday night line up of four reruns of Ghost Whisperer (SyFy) tonight.

Tomorrow, we have only one new SF entry, V, which will be the last new episode shown this year. Read about it here.

For the overall outlook of science fiction on TV this week, check this out!

And don't forget to check your local listings for The Legend of the Seeker, which is the only worthwhile sword and sorcery on TV right now. I'm seeing it locally on the CW on Sunday nights, but it may be different where you live, and they keep moving it around, so you may really have to look. Saturdays and daytime weekend TV have not been immune from this enjoyable series, so check it out.

Although they usually show the episode from the week before, and then a new episode, last week they showed the episode from the week before and then repeated it again immediately afterward. I was hoping they'd catch this, and show the new one they should have shown last week along with the next one, but they have definitely skipped an episode, and a whole new character has shown up and we don't know why. But they are doing reruns, so maybe we'll get to see the missing episode for the first time during the reruns.

Have a great evening!

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Addition:

Today is the 46th anniversary of the showing of the very first Doctor Who episode!

Happy birthday, Doctor Who!

Legend of the Seeker, Happy Birthday Johnny and Grape Jam

If you don't absolutely hate sword and sorcery, you should watch or DVR The Legend of the Seeker tonight on SyFy! There were multiple episodes scheduled for tonight earlier in the week, but, in it's charming, whimsical way, SyFy has chosen to change the schedule at the last moment so that they WON'T be on tonight!

But if you like sword and sorcery at all, this is good stuff! It's based on the Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind. I haven't read the books, but Sam Rami tells a good story in the TV series! The first few seem like individual stories, but after watching them, you start to see an overall story emerging, which eventually gets very exciting. It's been playing locally on the CW, sometime on Saturday and/or Sunday. You'll have to keep your eyes open because they keep changing the time, but it's worth tracking down. If you can't find it on TV, I recommend the DVD.

I didn't see a credits on the first episode of the new season, Marked, but it looked like Charisma Carpenter was in it, and, yes, IMdB says she was! This was a really good episode, and shows you can't tell the good guys, even with a score card, although we should have learned that from the last few episodes of the first season.

As of tonight, however, SyFy has returned to showing Doctor Who episodes very late on Thursday night (or early on Friday morning, depending on how you look at it)! They're continuing with The Stolen Earth tonight, which is the second of a three-part story following Turn Left. I really want to thank them for breaking the story up like that!

I want to thank them even more for scheduling Partners in Crime for next week, an episode that is the first one in the adventures of the Doctor and Donna, rather than the last of the three episodes in the story. I always love it when they show parts of a story out of order!

I shouldn't really complain. They show things in order so much of the time. I really want to thank them for showing Firefly in order, but they probably made a point of that since Fox showed them out of order and moved the time of the show, so I never got to see a whole show when it was on Fox, and never got to see them in order until they were on SciFi.

Sorry to ramble on like that!

What is on tonight (and brand new) includes Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Flash Forward and The Mentalist. They've stopped repeating Vampire Diaries on Thursday nights, unfortunately.

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Today is my grandson-in-law, John Merillat's birthday!

Happy Birthday, Johnny!

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Yesterday, the Encore Tweed in Grape Jam yarn arrived for Christmas presents!

I'm going to start with a wimple, but a very different one than I've made in the past. I'm considering this for a pattern if it turns out well.

Then there will be a hat, and I'll reassess mitts and a second hat depending on how much yarn is left.

Here's the beginning of the wimple, as far as I've gotten:

The color you can see on the left is the most accurate representation of the real color.

Here's a copy of the color as shown online. It looks a bit lighter and not as soft as the real color.

I am absolutely in love with this color and pattern so far.

I'm starting from the top down, so the photo shows the top of the wimple at the bottom of the photo. When I get to where it has to expand to go over the shoulders, I plan to have the pattern branch out and sprout leaves and possibly flowers. The whole thing is quite exciting for me! I keep knitting "just one more round" because the pattern is so pretty as it unfolds! Although the pattern will stay the same to the beginning of the shoulders, so I've about seen all there is for a while. The photo doesn't do it justice!

I need to look up some lavender colored flowers to put on this. Lilacs? No, too small. I thought about real grape flowers, and it's no wonder I've never seen them before because they're so tiny. I don't know. More research is in order.

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Holly felt it was very important for me to know more about the pink flamingo, as it applies to lawn ornaments, so she sent me this:

The father of the pink flamingo (the plastic lawn ornament) was Don Featherstone of Massachusetts. Featherstone graduated from art school and went to work as a designer for Union Products, a Leominster, Massachusetts company that manufactured flat plastic lawn ornaments.

He designed the pink flamingo in 1957 as a follow-up project to his plastic duck.

Today, Featherstone is president and part owner of the company that sells an average of 250,000 to 500,000 plastic pink flamingos a year.

Just thought you might want to know.

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Have a great time with all the wonderful TV that actually is on tonight!

V!

Well I recorded most of V on my DVR. That is I tried to record what the SyFy Channel aired. Not all of it, thanks to the shoddy Comcast DVR that failed to record about an hour of it. But not one episode. It failed to record the second half of one episode, and the first half of the next episode.

Aside number one: Comcast DVRs do not work well. They malfunction at random and in random ways all the time. About one out of ever ten times I go to play something back, the screen goes to black, and the whole thing locks up. I have to turn it off and back on to get it to play the recording if I'm lucky. The thing it's currently doing is saying it's taking up 4% of the disk space to record a two hour movie, but if I erase that same movie, it says I freed up 1% of the space. As you can see, this is eventually going to be a problem. Even though it said I had 18% of disk space free, I think it quit recording because it thought the disk was full. I'm having to disconnect it for 30 seconds and then reconnect it and leave it turned off for 15 to 20 minutes to get it to malfunction at it's usual level, as opposed to not functioning at all.

They are coming out to fix it on Monday. At least that's what they told me. Then again, they also left a message that said that they had fixed a problem in my area, and that they think it fixed my problem with the DVR, and my appointment was canceled, and that if I still had a problem I should call them and they'd schedule an appointment. When I called them, their automated service confirmed the existing appointment.

But there is a Comcast representative coming out to talk to all the people in the building that have problems on the 19th. I suspect that he, like the people I speak to on the phone, is an expert at blaming someone else, and will not really answer any questions or do anything to help. Comcast almost never does.

Aside Number Two: I had forgotten that Judson Scott was in some of the later episodes of V. He's been one of my favorite actors ever since the first time I saw him on Phoenix.

Back on Topic: V was a really wonderful and important show in a number of ways. It showed beautifully how a population can be convinced to do really terrible things. It compared what the visitors were doing with what Hitler did before and during World War II, and it was an excellent comparison, too.

When I was in High School, the teacher showed us an educational documentary to illustrate the way the communists were dealing with propaganda, and how they were manipulating people's minds.

The thing that was truly scary, is that a large group of the population of the town I went to school in protested vigorously about the fact that she was teaching this, and, even more terrifying, was that they followed all the procedure to stop her that the teacher was trying to teach us! They illustrated what she was trying to teach perfectly.

And the visitors in V are doing the same thing.

But, what is even more chilling is that some of those things have been happening right here in the United States, and the majority of the citizens I've spoken to have been calling it a good thing! One of those things that stands out is the federal laws about terrorists that have been passed under the last administration.

What people I've talked to seem to miss about all this is that by "terrorist" what they really mean is accused terrorist. In other words, all you need is to accuse someone of terrorism and all their civil rights go away, and they can be tortured, imprisoned, and even killed! This leaves the door open to someone who's miffed that their next-door neighbor has let their dog loose to make a mess on their front lawn to accuse that person of being a terrorist, and the federal government will punish him. To within an inch of their life. If they're lucky. It's the first step to abolishing democracy.

And I can't help noticing that it was extremely convenient for that administration to have everyone upset by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I also couldn't help noticing that a couple of days after the attacks, there were no plane debris anywhere near the Pentagon when I rode past it. And in spite of the government insisting that hundreds of people saw the plane hit the building, I haven't been able to find even one, and I live nearby.

And I can't help thinking that if someone who wanted to pass legislation to start to legally abolish democracy in the US, it was awfully convenient.

Aside Number Three: I saw a program on The History Channel recently about people who have a conspiracy theory going about 9/11, and the show drove me crazy. The show gave both conspiracy theorists and government representatives a chance to state their case.

Surprisingly, the best information to prove that it was a conspiracy came from the government reps!

One of the things that really gave me a jolt was that the government people said that large parts of both of the twin towers were closed for about two weeks before the "attack" and there was a lot of construction/destruction going on without an explanation. I didn't know that, and it provides an excellent explanation for the fact that both buildings went straight down without harming adjacent buildings.

Back on Topic: The second reason I think V is so important is that it provides lots of ideas for how to fight back. So, pay attention. It could save your life and your country. I'm sure the Germans thought it couldn't happen in their country, but it did.

I should mention, at this point, that I feel that the US is getting back on track as a country I can be proud of under the current administration.

But the best thing about the previous miniseries/TV show called V was that it was entertaining. And the new version promises to be entertaining, too. The first episode alone is too small a sampling of quality to be sure, but keep watching.

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In other SF/fantasy TV, Eastwick will be back on tonight, and now that Chad is dead (killed by the statue his girlfriend, Roxie, made) things may be heating up. I can't wait to see it!

The SyFy Channel will be showing a new (for them) series tomorrow evening, called The Legend of the Seeker. The show is based on the Sword of Truth series of books by Terry Goodkind, and is the very thing that all you Sword-and-Sorcery fen have been waiting for.

I haven't read the books, but I have seen the first season, and it's better than I expected. In addition to being based on books from a respected author like Terry Goodkind, Sam Rami also has his hand in it (as one of what seems like a dozen different kinds of producers), and his brother, Ted, even appears in an episode. You might remember Ted Rami from Xena Warrior Princess, where he played Joxer.

So, you might want to check it out on SyFy tomorrow night if you haven't already seen it.

Oh, and SyFy will be showing Doctor Who on their daytime rotation on Friday!

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I have some additional photos from Holly and Robin's trip to New Orleans.

Here, you see an overall view of Robin in his costume.

And, in case you missed the point, is a close-up:

Holly said that everybody recognized him instantly.

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Well, my Social Security arrived yesterday, and I've paid my bills and bought some things to make Christmas presents from, and now, one day later, I have barely enough to buy food and stuff for the rest of the month.

What else is new?

I need to think up a good money raising project. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Have a great evening!

Twenty Days Until Christmas!

But if you celebrate Twelfth Night, you get an extra dozen!

On that cheery note, here is a photo of my progress so far on the first Christmas stocking I'm knitting as a commission.

That's the sample stocking on the left, some of the yarn bought for the stockings, and the small amount I've gotten done so far. For nonknitters, you should understand that stockinet stitch (which is what this is) tends to roll until it's blocked. That's why the bottom is rolling up over the date. I'm actually about to start the icicles at the bottom of the white section at the top. This seems like slow progress, but since I haven't yet found the yarn for the Santa face on the other side, it's just as well. The upper left hand ball of yarn is the fuzzy stuff for Santa's beard and the fur on his hat. I thought I'd have trouble finding something good in the store, but it was almost the first thing I found. Instead, it's the skin-tone yarn I'm still looking for.

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While I was out yesterday, I got some rechargeable batteries for my camera. I had planned to get some of the new, ecologically superior hybrid ones from Amazon, but saw these in the store and snapped them up.

The fine print on the package was very fine, and I didn't discover until I got home that their claim to ecological superiority depended on the fact that they used slightly less packaging materials (thus saving a bit on landfil) and the fact that (like all the other rechargeable batteries)... they're rechargeable! So you don't keep using and tossing non-rechargeable batteries.

Bring your glasses and read the fine print when you're shopping.

Now that they're home, I'll keep them, because I really do need batteries, but I'll get the better ones from Amazon in the next month or two.

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Tonight, we have the usual, but all new episodes of Ghost Whisperer, Stargate Atlantis
(along with a rerun from last week in case you missed it) and Sanctuary.

The SciFi Channel is doing a dragon theme on Saturday, and they're rerunning Dragon Sword along with the rest. For you fans of really, exceptionally bad movies, you'll want to tune in to Grendel. It's truly horrible. I couldn't stand to watch much of it, but several other bloggers did, and wrote glowing reports of it's total hideousness.

On Sunday, they'll be running Tin Man again, and later, a movie called Tristan and Isolde. I haven't seen the later movie, but I love really old stories, so I can't wait to watch.

Of course, don't forget The Legend of the Seeker on the CW on Saturday evening, Harry Potter all weekend on ABC Family, and The Librarian movies (afternoon and evening) and Leverage on TNT on Sunday. As usual, check your local listings.

I came across some really neat SF stuff on the internet, too.

There's more about The Librarian series on io9 here.

There's some Doctor Who fanfic (?) from the BBC site at Planet Galifrey. I haven't read all of it yet, but the little I did read looks interesting.

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I played around with my camera the other night (the first night that there was no cloud cover) and snapped this photo of the moon.

One thing I discovered was that even though it's got an anti-shake scheme, you still need a tripod to photograph something this far away. But I like it. That's the full frame, nothing cropped. I love this camera!

I know I keep saying this, but I really have to get the apartment reorganized and set up for Christmas.

Today!

Well, at least started today.

I hope you have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend!