Eleven Days Until Christmas!

Time is moving way too fast for me, as it usually does at this time of year! It seems like there should be more time until Christmas!

I'll bet you're all feeling the same way.

If you still have Christmas presents to make, there is my Santa Hat,  which is a quick knit, but there's also my Dicky Pattern, which is another quick knit.

There's also my Watch Cap pattern and a version of Crazy Aunt Purl's beret translated to a worsted weight yarn. You can read Crazy Aunt Purl and get her original beret pattern for heavier yarn by clicking here.

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I'd like to write more today, but Comcast is at a point where it's internet connection almost isn't working at all, it's so bad. So there won't be much more to this post.

The CW will be running two hours of Vampire Diaries reruns every night all this week. There will be a new Human Target tomorrow night. And if you're looking for some good, offbeat Christmas programs,  Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Leverage have had great Christmas episodes on in the past week which will be repeated to death between now and Christmas. Keep an eye out for them!

Have fun until I can get Comcast to actually provide internet service again!

Hope You Had a Happy Equinox!

Yesterday was the Equinox, and I hope you had a good one.

Yesterday, Jupiter was the closest to Earth it has been for 47 years, and the closest it will be in our lifetimes.

I have a camera with a looooong lens, but this was the best photo I could get of it last night. It looked very bright when I was just looking at it, but the photo made it almost invisible. I had to hike up the contrast drastically in PhotoShop to be able to see it. I was hoping to be able to see the moons, but just couldn't. It's possible that the light fog that was present was responsible for that.

While I was out there and taking photos, I took a picture of the moon and Jupiter together:

I had to hike up the contrast to be able to see Jupiter in this one, too, in spite of the fact that Jupiter and the Moon looked equally bright to me. I only messed with the contrast on Jupiter, not the moon in the photo above. The sort of halo around the moon is because of the mist we were experiencing where I live at the time.

Tonight, though, the moon will be full, and maybe the mist won't happen. We'll see. And although Jupiter was at it's very closest last night, it's not like it's moving directly away from us, so it'll still be pretty close in case you missed it last night!

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Tonight, we have a bonanza of good shows on! Season premiers include Bones, Fringe, The Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, and (I think) The Mentalist! Vampire Diaries premiered last week, so there will be a new episode, but not a premier.

While we're on the subject of the media, my friend, Tim Davis is currently filming a zombie movie (Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre), and the last day of principle filming will be on Sunday. I'll be going (doing make up), and I just found out that Tim needs some extra zombies, so I'm going to ask Holly if she wants to be a zombie for the movie. Yes, Holly, you will get a credit on the movie if you do this!

I'll be taking my cameras along, and snapping lots of pictures. I already told Tim I'd give him copies of all the photos that turn out well. I'll see if it's all right with him to show some of them on my blog. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun, plus I'll get to add more credits to my IMdB page!

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As you can see, there's not much happening around here, just celestial events and zombie movies! I probably won't get a chance to blog tomorrow, though.

Have fun tomorrow and I hope your weekend is as fun as mine's going to be!

It's Wednesday! Also Known as "Guess the TV Show" Day!

I'm currently playing "Guess the TV show" due to the fact that there is no digital TV guide data being displayed by Comcast today!

After three phone calls, the best they can do is blame it on my DVR (that they just gave me--brand new), and send someone out on Monday. That someone will probably decide that the only way to fix it will be to take away all my recorded programming and give me a completely different defective DVR.

All this past week, it hasn't been displaying any programming for Wednesday. I unplugged it and restarted it after I got tired of this, and after the fifth or sixth attempt, it did display information for Wednesday, briefly. But now that Wednesday's here, it's not displaying any information for any channel or day. At all!

So, here's some information I found for you when companies do this to you and won't give you satisfaction:

You can complain about it to the FTC here. Once you're at that page, there's a big brown box on the upper right side of the page to click for the actual complaint form.

It probably won't do much good in a case like this, but if everybody complains about bad service, sooner or later the numbers of complaints may get them to do something about it. We can only hope!

After the third call I made to them about this (to get their email address because the FTC form asked for it and it's not available anywhere, not even if you call them and ask for it), the person I spoke to promised me that they'd have a supervisor call me. That was several hours ago. I'm not holding my breath. And the typical response for a really severe and repeated complaint is for Comcast to classify it as the "highest priority." Please notice that that classification doesn't entail actually doing anything about it. It's just changing the priority to make you feel like it's important to them, even though they couldn't care less.

Regardless of what happens, I plan to get a TiVo if I can ever save the money for it.

After looking for TiVos on Amazon, I found this DVD-R/RW Recorder/TiVo Series2 DVR Combo for significantly less than those available from TiVo. Yes, I know it's used and not ATSC, but it represents a significant improvement over the piece of junk that came from Comcast.

And you can get two weeks of digital TV guide with TiVo! And with that box, I'll be able to watch my DVDs again (if I can ever get them back from Holly).

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I'm sorry. It's almost 5:30, and I'm just now recovering from waking up and finding my TV service only semi-operational! Sorry to be so cranky.

I had planned to talk about something else, but I can't think what it was at this point.

Tomorrow three programs start their new seasons: Burn Notice (USA), and Vampire Diaries and Supernatural, both on the CW (?). I know that because I marked it on a calendar, not because I could get any TV programming information on cable! I know Burn Notice is on USA, and I think the other two are on CW, but I can't verify that because my digital TV guide doesn't work!

Yes, it's on the CW. I checked online!

On Friday, we'll have the premier of Caprica on SyFy! And, if memory serves, Dollhouse and Ghost Whisperer will be preempted. Fox is really leaving us in suspense on Dollhouse!

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

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Addition:

I take back some of what I said. Maybe complaining to the FTC does do some good.

I got a call back from one of the supervisors at Comcast, and he apologized for the problem and took $15 off of this month's bill! That's the first time I've ever had them do something like that!

It was probably the fact that I called them to ask for their email address and explained it was to fill in the complaint form for the FTC.

I'd rather just have good service from them, but the money off does make me feel better because if they do that with everyone who has complaints that they can't solve, it's going to affect their bottom line, and I don't think there's any better leverage to get a corporation to shape up.

Happy Birthday, Heather!

Once again, it's that time of year:

Happy Birthday, Heather!

I hope you have a great day!

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The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will be on SyFy tonight!

There will also be some Vampire Diaries rerun on the CW, and a brand new Better Off Ted, which is not SF, but is very good, still. Actually, it's almost SF. Some of the new products they're developing are very SF and so are the problems that humans have dealing with those inventions and products.

Anyway, tonight is rescued as an SF night!

And there will be a new Eastwick on tomorrow night! Save Eastwick!

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I found a knitting calculator, which I haven't tried yet, but put a link to in the sidebar. It will help you know how much yarn you'll need to knit a specific project.

Enjoy!

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I shouldn't be sitting here writing, I should be out getting all the things I didn't finish yesterday done. I made a mistake with something I got yesterday and I have to go back and exchange it. Then I have to go get some things I need to make Christmas presents. All that's after I go donate some food to the food bank and pick up some books that are waiting for me at the Library.

So, I have to get moving. Have a great evening!

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Addition:

The Winter edition of Knitty is out, and it has some things I'd like to make! Check it out for some great ideas for last minute Christmas presents!

Quick Note

I have lots of stuff to do today and had planned to be on the bus already, but I'm not. Instead, I'm trying to get off the computer and get something done.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that the CW will be running reruns of Vampire Diaries every evening this week (or nearly every evening. The kid who plays Stefan is very wooden and stiff in the beginning, but loosens up as things go on and it gets better, so it really seems to be worth watching if you stick with it.

Check your local schedules.

I'm in a Daze

This is the second week this month that has me getting up early several mornings in one week. Today was one of those days, and tomorrow will be, too.

Earlier this month, I had to get up early on Tuesday to go to the dentist and have my kitchen replaced, and then on Thursday for something else that I can't think of at the moment.

This week, we have another early dental appointment on Tuesday, followed by an appointment to tell me what my new rent will be for the next year, and tomorrow I have to get up early again to get a flu shot.

The dental appointment on Tuesday wasn't fun, but I've just about recovered from that. The awful tastes/smells are almost gone, it feels a little funny, but doesn't really hurt anymore, and the whole center of my face is still not happy about having been filled with Novocaine, but I'm pretty much over it.

Even though my income won't be going up next year (Susan, in her wisdom insists that the newspeople reporting that Social Security will not be going up next year are wrong, and it will), and my rent is dependent on my income, and in spite of the fact that I managed to muster $500 in eligible medical expenses from last year, my rent is still going UP! That $500 in medical expenses is getting me a whole $13 a month discount on my rent. Wow! I'm underwhelmed!

I'm also tired from getting up early two days this week, and I'm going to have to repeat it all tomorrow to get a flu shot.

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There's a lot of good stuff on TV tonight!

Vampire Diaries and Supernatural will be on the CW tonight, and they'll both be new. For any of you who (like me) have missed some of the Vampire Diaries, they've been running reruns at other times. I think there was one on Tuesday, and I know there was another one last night. Supernatural has been dynamite, but I still haven't made up my mind about the Vampire Diaries. I keep hoping it'll grow on me, but so far, it's "Who cares?"

There's a new Mentalist on tonight, too, and a new Flash Forward.

I need to manage to catch up on my sleep. Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to "catch up on my sleep" because if I miss those early morning hours, I'm never able to catch up.

Have fun with all the great TV tonight!

Welcome to the Sauna!

It's gotten over 70 degrees both yesterday and today, and that means that even with all the windows open as far as I can open them, it's about 90 degrees in here since the people who run the apartment building have the heat turned on. I have my thermostat turned down to freezing, but that doesn't slow it down at all. I think I've turned it up past freezing in the winter about twice since I've been here. And that was when we had weather that didn't get above about 13 degrees for a high for an extended time period. Usually, all I have to do to warm the place up in extreme weather is to shut the windows.

So, don't expect a lot of blogging until it cools off a bit.

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Here's an update on what's been happening around here.

Holly and I decided to save on some of Bud K's shipping fees and place a combined order for both of us. Holly and I both have an interest in edged weapons, both as tools and as art objects. Some of the edged weapons I have used to be useful for SCA, but Holly collects them. I, for one, could not resist a sock knife that has a braided cable pattern for a hilt and has a blue stone set in it. It's beautiful. We're each getting one, in fact.

See why, as an artist, I like it?

But here's the really big news!

Holly and Robin are going to New Orleans for Halloween!

Holly called me from work last night to gloat that a week from then, she'd be in New Orleans. I envy her the opportunity! It sounds like so much fun! I've already told her I want pictures!

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I have news about Dollhouse. Lots of news, and it's all conflicting. Apparently, according to Fox, they have decided to show the entire season, all 13 episodes, and they have cancelled it, and Friday's episode will be the last. Which is par for the course for Fox. I have no idea how it's possible for them to do both of these things, but then they managed to kill one of the best TV shows I've ever seen, namely, Firefly.

When they originally decided to pick up Dollhouse, Firefly and Joss Whedon fans immediately started a campaign to get Fox to not cancel Dollhouse. After murdering Firefly, Fox was bewildered that the fans might think that they'd managed to destroy Dollhouse, too. Gee, I can't imagine why.

I don't know if you've been watching Castle or not, but there are some little nuggets for SF fen scattered here and there. There's a recent episode where he says something to the effect of "I'm going to buy a space ship and call it Serenity." But for next Monday's Halloween episode, there will be references to Bufffy the Vampire Slayer (specifically the episodes that Nathan Fillion was in) and to Firefly, specifically, he'll be wearing his "Captain Tightpants" outfit as a Halloween costume. Fans of the captain should not miss it! It looks like it'll be a lot of campy fun! I can't wait!

There's a game of some kind on TV tonight, so I'm finally going to get to see an episode of Grey's Anatomy, for the first time this season because Fringe won't be on.

I don't know why all the networks have put anything worth watching on Thursday and Friday nights. They probably didn't have room for Heroes and Eastwick on Thursday and Friday due to the jam-up of all the good shows then. Those are currently the only good shows, along with Legend of the Seeker that are regularly scheduled shows on TV, other than reruns of Torchwood.

Eastwick, by the way is the only show currently on television that gets me to yell out "No!" at the TV because the episode is over! I'm hooked!

So, tonight, you can enjoy Flash Forward, The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and The Mentalist. Tomorrow, we have Ghost Whisperer, Medium and (of course) Dollhouse!

Enjoy!

I feel like I'm cooking from the inside out, so I'm going to go and either lie down or maybe take a cold shower. I hate this every Spring and Fall!

And here's something funny for you, just because I can!

Crazy Aunt Purl, this one's for you!

I hope you're not overheating, and that you have a great evening!