Knit In Public!

It's World Wide Knit in Public Day!

Well, sort of.

The website says that you can pick which day you choose to celebrate it on. From the twelfth to the twentieth of June. I suppose you could celebrate it all of those days if you wanted to, also.

The site at the link above wants to sell you lots of stuff. They have a store. But they don't tell you about knitting in public in your area. You can find out more about the history and founding of the "day" here.

I thought I could find a website to send you to with more information about activities in various places, but it seems to be very unstructured. If you google it, you can find information about a few activities in a few places, but there's no one centralized location to find out what's happening near you.

But keep in mind that you don't have to have a specific planned activity that's coordinated with a lot of people. You can just take your knitting with you and knit in public all by yourself! Then again, that makes it all just like any other day for me. I tend to carry something to knit with me whenever I go out, unless it's just walking to Safeway or the library, both of which I can see from my apartment. People on the bus ask me what I'm knitting, especially when it's a sock because I've gravitated toward the two-circular-needles method of knitting them, and I guess it looks funny to people not familiar with that method.

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I planned to knit in public at the Potomac Celtic Festival today, but Holly's not feeling too well, and she's got a problem with her foot. She says it feels like she stepped on some glass, but she can't find any glass or anything else in her foot. But she doesn't want to either walk or drive much today, so we're not going. I'm disappointed, but not terribly so. If I go, it means a lot of extra driving for her, and I hate to do that to her. It also means that if I went, I'd feel terrible from all the walking later today and for the next few days. And, on top of that, after the expense of the TiVo, I really don't have any money to spend unless I plan to starve at the end of the month.

So, I think what I should do is find some hard cider to buy and drink this weekend, and find a nice little Celtic or other special treat for myself to buy next month. It's just not a Celtic festival without scrumpy!

While I'm on the subject of scrumpy, I found the lyrics to one of my favorite folk songs, Dead Dog Scrumpy on the internet. And, as if that wasn't enough, here's a video of the song so you can hear it!



When Holly was younger, I put together a tape of folk songs that were humorous, and this was one of them. This next one was also on the tape.



It's called The Vicar and the Frog, and is here performed by Fred Wedlock. This was also one that Steve did for SCA (along with Scrumpy). They are not, I hasten to add, period songs for SCA, but period subjects. They'd both be great songs for the Celtic festival, too. I may not be getting something neat at the Celtic festival, but this is something for you.

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There is some good science fiction on TV this weekend. There will be a new Doctor Who on BBC in America this evening, The Hungry Earth.

Two of the Librarian series will be on TNT this weekend, Return to King Solomon's Mines and Curse of the Judas Chalice, plus I Am Legend, which I saw last weekend, and was surprisingly good, and Transformers, which I haven't seen yet, and don't have high expectations for, but I'm going to check out.

I watched Hancock last night on Encore, and was surprised at how good that was, too. Since it was on Encore, it'll be on again a few times in the next few days, so check it out!

There's probably a lot more, but I'm sure you can find things to watch on your own.

Have a wonderful weekend, and don't forget to knit in public!

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!

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!

Yarn Imagination Contest!

I hadn't planned on posting today, but I came across this Yarn Imagination Contest by Lion Brand Yarn, and wanted to let you know.

I'm seriously thinking about entering, but don't have an idea of what to knit. You might say I'm waiting on inspiration.

It's all right, because I'll wake up in the middle of the night or tomorrow with a smashing idea.

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Sanctuary marathon is on SyFy today!

Not a lot on TV other than that, though.  We have to wait until next month for sweeps, then all the good stuff will be back on TV. A few series will be back late this month, though. I'll keep you up to date.

That doesn't help us much right now, though.

What might help me soon is the new (refurbished) TiVo I ordered last Friday. It shipped yesterday, and they estimate that it'll be here tommorrow. Then I just have to get the card(s) installed, and I can get special programming from TiVo, even if there's nothing I want to watch on TV.

I might have been satisfied to keep my Comcast DVR, but it's still having severe problems accessing the digital TV guide. I do have to say that since the repairman came last week, the picture and sound been much better, but it still doesn't want to let me know what's on. I tried to find out which Sanctuary episodes were on today, and in spite of the fact that one of them was on, it wouldn't tell me about any of them. And it's been refusing to let me know what's coming on tomorrow, like the other one did. Judging by the two I've tried, Comcast DVRs seem to have to choose a Wednesday during which they will not display any guide info! I have to fight with the DVR to get it to display any information more than two days ahead, and sometimes it won't display information for now, let alone two hours from now.

I hope you're having a great week!

It's supposed to display programming info for the coming week, but usually doesn't. TiVo is supposed to display info for the coming two weeks! And it's supposed to have lots of programming available through TiVo, too! I can't wait!

More Star Wars!

I know I just did a Star Wars post the other day, but I have some photos for you, thanks to my friend, Tim Davis.

The first one leans a little more toward Star Trek than Star Wars. My friend , Tim Pace (who is a very interesting character in his own rite) used to own a van that was very science fictioney. It had "Klaatu Barada Nikto"" inscribed on the side (from The Day the Earth Stood Still), but was modeled more on the Enterprise on the inside. The dashboard was an array of switches and controls that certainly was more complicated than the space ship. The controls turned on sound effects, lights and other miscellaneous effects, and many fen enjoyed it at various SF cons.

Here it is parked on M Street in Georgetown.

This van was featured in a TV show about the Star Trek phenomenon that was done by BJo Trimble, which showed Tim Pace and Jan Cox in the van, with Tim giving orders and Jan flipping switches and turning on and off sound effects.

Here we see Tim Pace himself (seated toward the back of the photo) with the copy of R2D2 that he built.

R2 was wonderful because he was remote controlled, and could travel around on his own. It was really fun watching him "walk" around a con with a group of people. I was at one con, where some of us were helping Tim pack up everything at the end of the con. Tim walked R2 out to the parking garage, where people were arriving for a wedding celebration, and the non-science fiction people would walk up to R2 and start talking to him, and posing for photos with him while we were loading stuff into Tim's Star Trek van!

Here's a photo of Tim Davis with Bruce Rauscher.

Bruce was a science fiction con regular back at that time, and later was in John Ellis' movies Invader and Twilight of the Dogs.

Tim Pace is an interesting person. He used to own (and possibly still does) a stage lighting company called Light Works, and his equipment cases list his address as "Planet Earth." I've seen some of his home movies, and they're amazing. There are movies of The Rolling Stones, and most other large bands of the time taken from back stage! He also did lighting for science fiction conventions and Invader and Twilight of the Dogs, and stage lighting for The Bayou in DC.

Tim Davis did special effects makeup for the same two movies, and many others. When we were working on Twilight, I pointed my camera at him and told him to look mean. He pasted a mean expression on his face, and pointed a spray bottle of fake blood at me!

He's currently working on his movie, Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre, which, incidentally, stars Bruce!

Have a marvelous Monday!

iPad Giveaway!

There's an iPad giveaway happening here, or click the link below the Harry Potter ad above.

There are a number of ways to enter, and the prize is described at the link or the button.

Have fun!