Welcome to February!

The year just started and January is over already!

Over at Crazy Aunt Purl's blog, she's reporting in on how well her New Year's resolutions are going.

I don't want to talk about mine.

You can tell it's not going well. But I plan to suck it up and get moving on them.

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Tonight, we have new episodes of: Chuck, Heroes and Castle!

Tomorrow night, we have the return of new episodes of Lost!

Get Lost again!

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I finally figured out how/why my DVR is erasing programs that I don't want to part with.

I watched two episodes of Supernatural yesterday. One was a continuation of the other, so after watching the first part, I went on to watch the second part without erasing the first (in case I wanted to check back on something in the first one). When I was done with them, I erased the second one right after watching it, went back to the list of programs, highlighted the first one, and erased it. When I went back to the list of shows, the first episode of Supernatural was still there, but Lost (from last week, which I hadn't watched all of) was gone.

In other words, when I highlight something and choose it, sometimes it actually opens something that was NOT highlighted. I think (because a program was highlighted and I chose it) that that's what I got, but it has actually opened something else.

Just another malfunction of this piece of junk (aka a DVR) from Comcast, and another reason to get TiVo! I'll have money on Wednesday, and will be ordering my TiVo then, and I can't wait, believe me.

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To get you into the spirit, and brush up on your lore, here's some information about Groundhog Day, which is, of course, tomorrow!

Groundhog Day is also know as Candlemas, and the pagans call if Imbolc. Study up and impress your friends tomorrow!

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I keep talking about lots of stuff to do today, and wind up putting it off, but I really do have a lot to do, so I'm going to keep this short.

Happy February, everybody!

Christmas Presents Gone!

Most of the Christmas presents are finished and gone. Holly came over yesterday, and since she was sending presents to some of the same people, she took those so that she could mail just one BIG box to the recipients. She also took the presents for people she would be seeing real soon. I'm sorry that these didn't get out sooner. Mailing was delayed mostly by weather, snow, sleet, extreme cold, and/or wind, plus a couple of days that I was feeling really bad.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that I've finished all the presents.

I've been going crazy trying to think of a present for Robin. It's really difficult, because Robin has so much money that he can buy whatever he wants, so he has everything he wants, and I'm so short of money that I can barely afford anything. But, after 3 months of looking for the perfect present for him, inspiration finally struck. Actually, two inspirations, one to make, and one to buy. The one to buy has been ordered over the internet, and has been shipped and is on it's way. I bought most of the yarn for the other one yesterday.

The other person who hasn't got a Christmas present yet is Everett. I've been trying to find yarn to make his present, but haven't had any luck so far. We looked at Michaels, and AC Moore yesterday, and neither had what I needed. Well, actually, Michaels had three of the six balls I needed in the color I wanted, but in different dye lots. So, I'm still looking.

While out, Holly and I stopped a Borders. I finally got a calender for the new year, plus the Septimus Heap book that is the fourth in the series (Queste), and out in paperback at last. I have the fifth book (Syren) ordered at the library, but it will be a while before I get it. Holly had a 33% off coupon for me, and I used it to buy The Sorceress of Karres! Now I have lots of great stuff to read!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Holly gave me a gift certificate to Knit Picks for Christmas! Now I'm mulling over what to buy.

Knit Picks has piqued my imagination with their new designers program. I have got to make some designs for them and for myself! I'm considering making a hat for my first project.

While we were out, we stopped at the WalMart that's at the Manassas Mall, and were amazed! This WalMart is so big and has lots of stuff that the others don't have! Having all that stuff available would seem to be an advantage, but it is so big that I got tired of walking before I got everything.

We topped everything off with a trip to Ruby Tuesday and a lot of catching up and fun.

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There are lots of programs on TV tonight with new episodes! They include: Chuck, Heroes, Castle (this is the episode with Alyssa Milano), Fringe (on a different night), and The Big Bang Theory! Unfortunately, Heroes, Fringe and The Big Bang Theory are all on at the same time, thus exceeding my DVR's capacity to record two shows at once.

I promised John that I would finish the work he wanted me to do on the Steve Canyon poster today, and it's not done yet, so I have to go.

There will probably not be a post tomorrow due to my last dental appointment! There will be drilling and a dubious filling will be replaced, and I will get my final caps, and I'll be done. I don't feel that I can really say that I'll be happy to go, but I'll be happy to get it finished!

Have a great evening and a wonderful week!

Gettysburg: The First Night

I promised Lynn that I would write about my trip to Gettysburg in 1959, but there's just so much information that it would take me a whole day to begin to cover it all, so I'm breaking it down into parts. Probably three parts, but who knows at this point?

We got to the campground at Spanglers Spring late in the afternoon.

This is a current satellite view of Spanglers Spring, where we camped. The green square is where the Andersons pitched their tent, and Jean, Art and I, et al, pitched our tent in the blue square. The aqua circles are where people came along later and pitched tents in a row. The red circle is where we made a campfire.

The area where we pitched our tents was along the line of the high ground of the field. It sloped down to the road at the bottom of the map. That kind of thick, dark, meandering line on the right side of the map is actually Rock Creek.

Anyway, we said hi to the people who were already there, which were mainly the Andersons, and started pitching our tent. While we were doing that, other people started arriving and pitching their tents along the line that we had established. Don Steiner camped next to us, and brought Harry Lamb along, and they camped next to us. When things were unloaded from the cars, they were moved away and parked elsewhere.

Once everybody had set up and changed into their period clothes, they started coming out of their tents and being sociable. We built a campfire near the road, and in front of the line of tents, more-or-less in front of Andersons tent and settled down to making and consuming our dinners. I was wearing cowboy boots, jeans, a shirt, a rust colored, suede fringed jacket, short hair and a blue Kepi.

This was kind of a motley crew because Art and the Andersons were Yankees, in the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers (the Bucktail Brigade). I don't remember which group Don (a Yankee) was from, but Harry was in Hampton's Legion (Rebels from South Carolina).

As it started to get dark, the campfire got to be more attractive, and most of us gravitated to it and sang Civil War songs. A lot of the adults there had brought along spirits, and were loosening up by drinking them. Huck and (I think) Randy had their fifes, and I had my Melody Flute (from grade school--I eventually got a real fife), and Huck was really annoyed with me because he and Randy had fifes in the key of B flat, and my flute was in the key of C, and he insisted that I couldn't possibly play it with them. I, on the other hand, wanted to try and transpose the songs to play them in B flat, even though I was using the key of C. It got pretty rowdy! At the campfire, I got to meet Jack Davis for the first time.

Somewhere during the night, somebody got sufficiently drunk that they thought it would be a good idea to fire off a canon. I think that they must've told us that we couldn't fire muskets or canons on the campgrounds or something, because somebody thought it would be a wonderful idea to cross Rock Creek to do it.

We had a short stop at Andersons tent while Huck and the boys pulled out a small canon that was a bit longer than a foot, plus powder, etc. We then walked down behind the row of tents and crossed Rock Creek on a rickety two-board bridge.

By "two-board" I mean that there were supports, and between each support were two long boards, one for each foot. They were so long, and they bounced with each step on them. That was bad enough with one person crossing the bridge, but with a whole troop, it was very treacherous. There was a hand rail on one side of the bridge, but it was so far away from the boards that it was almost useless. The bridge was at least 20 feet above the creek, so it was interesting!

Once we got to the other side, we took a very short walk through the trees, set down the cannon, loaded it, and set it off. Huck thought it would be spectacular to add a lot of magnesium to the black powder, and he was right, it was awe inspiring! Looking back on it, I'm surprised that we didn't kill ourselves!

After firing it off, we all trooped back (across the rickety bridge), and caroused around the fire for a while before eventually going to bed/passing out.

The next morning, I woke up, came out of the tent, and found myself looking down the barrels of some very large cannons! Another group had arrived during the night and started a new row of tents on the other side of the campfire, making a company street. They had their cannon parked next to their tent, and pointing right at our tent.

The next part of the Gettysburg saga is expected to be the battle itself.

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ABC Family is having another Harry Potter weekend! If you like the Harry Potter movies (and didn't OD on them over the holidays), check it out!

BBC in America is showing the Doctor Who episode, Smith and Jones (which is partly over as I write this), followed by the first and second episodes of Demons, in case you didn't see the first one last week.

Don't forget Chuck is on tomorrow night, two whole hours of it, followed by more Chuck and Heroes on Monday night, all brand new!

I have a lot to do, and I'm way behind, so have a great weekend!

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Addition:

I just realized that I wanted to tell you about the connection between hormones and losing weight. It's a great article!

The Tenth Day of Christmas

It's the tenth day of Christmas today. In the Middle Ages, people would have been gearing up for the biggest festival on Twelfth Night. In the Current Middle Ages, people are doing just that. With any luck, my Christmas presents to myself may arrive in time for Twelfth Night, or maybe Distaff Day.

Sorry, people who are in the SCA or used to be have a tendency to speak of dates in Medieval holidays.

I woke up today much later than usual today, and the Mummers Parade was on TV! It's been ages since I've watched the parade on TV!

While I never went downtown when I was a kid to see it, I have watched the Harrowgate String Band strut their stuff on Frankford Avenue!

This is a photo of the Frankford String Band, which I've also seen strut in person.

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Last night, I saw the final episode of Doctor Who with David Tenent, and it was good!

Previous doctors have met their ends suddenly, and without warning. Well, Tom Baker's Doctor could tell it was coming, but didn't use the information to his advantage. I don't want to give away any spoilers (well, I really do, but some of you may not have seen that episode yet), but this time the Doctor has a lot of warning (the Ood have been trying to get hold of him for ages to let him know), and even after the deed is done, he still has a chance to see old friends before he's gone.

So, anyway, we have a new Doctor! Geronimo!

By the way, Geronimo seems to be the new Allons-y.

Somehow, it just doesn't have as much class.

Anyway, Doctor, "Your song is ending, but the story never ends."

Heroes is back tomorrow night with an all new two hour episode!

The holidays always inspire lots of reruns, but it's wonderful go get back to real TV! You know, new stuff! January will see lots of shows returning with a new season.

One of those shows coming back is Chuck, and you can get ready for the new season by watching a series of back-to-back reruns on SyFy Thursday evening starting at 5 pm here.

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Speaking of TV, I have a spooky story for you that I was reminded of by TV (Ghost Hunters, to be exact).

John keeps telling me I have to tell you more about some of the things I've done in my life, and this is one of the odder ones, so here goes:

My aunt and uncle used to be involved in N-SSA. I know I've mentioned that before, but for those of you who haven't read about it before, it's a group of Civil War reenactors.

Jean asked me to go to some of their events, and the first one I went to was at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. If you ckick the link, you'll find that it has a different name, now.

We arrived on Friday evening, and had enough time to pitch our tents and get set up before it was dark. There wasn't much to it, just a line of tents of the participants, and, at right angles to that, Sutler's Row. Sutlers are merchants. Yes, this was a shopping opportunity, too!

This was my first skirmish, and I got to meet a lot of people and sit in one of their tents and sing Civil War songs. It was lots of fun.

The next morning, I woke up to a strange, droning sound. I dressed quickly and got out of the tent to find a heavy fog. Somebody told me to look up and pointed up at the sky in a direction that was behind the tent. I kept saying "I don't see anything" (due to the heavy fog) and they told me to keep looking.

Suddenly, out of the fog, about 30 feet up, there appeared an airship! It was right there, so close it startled me!

It went right over my head, and then another one appeared, and another and another! I don't know how many airships there were, but they kept coming in overhead, one after the other!

I was told that they had been waiting something like two weeks to land. In order for an airship to land, the air has to be very still, and we'd had too much wind for a while.

Later on that day, there was a special tour that had been arranged for us visitors to the air station, and a bunch of us went off on a military bus. We got to see lots of things. One that stands out in my memory was the flight lind (which we didn't actually get very close to, and they wouldn't let us off the bus).

I do remember a lot of planes parked on the ramp with their wings folded up like this:

They were painted in the Naval design, and the place above doesn't really look like the ones I remember, but the wings fold the same way.

But the big event was Hangar One!

Hangar One is unbelievably BIG! The gentleman who was giving the tour told us all about it at length. There was a lot to talk about, and he gave us all the details. At that point in time (I'm told there are bigger ones now, but I don't know why), it was the biggest open interior structure in the world. It was intended to house airships, and could hold quite a few. It was also so big that it sometimes developed it's own local weather patterns, and they had known it rain inside the hanger, even when it wasn't raining outside. When we saw it, it was empty.

I missed a lot of what the guide was telling us because I kept being distracted by the oddest thing I'd seen so far (I was 16, and still in high school). The scene looked peaceful, and nothing seemed to be happening, but right in front of the hangar was something that is hard to describe.

I could see the scene as it was, but I could also see something else. It was like there was a huge photographic slide that I was looking at it through. The slide was moving (as in video), and I could see it just as clearly as I could see the ground in front of the hangar.

But what was in the slide was not calm and peaceful, it was turbulent and full of fire! An airship was there, and it burst into flames! It was very chaotic, and it just went on and on with flames bursting out of the airship and consuming it as if gradually fell the last few feet of it's landing.

Finally, the guide came to the end of his tour of the hangar and asked if anyone had any questions. I asked him if anything unusual had happened at that particular place, pointing to the spot where I was still watching the airship burn. He said "Oh, yeah. That's the exact spot where the Hindenburg crashed and burned!"

This is what I was looking at:

This is the first photograph that I've ever seen of the Hindenburg fire that's in color. It's even more impressive when you're looking at the real thing. Fire tends to overload film and increase the contrast, but when you see it for real, it's a lot brighter and redder. It looks a lot scarier, too! And this photo was just the beginning. The fire spread and engulfed the whole airship, and I got to watch the whole thing in horror and fascination!

Ghost Hunters, by the way, really amazes me. It takes one of the most exciting topics I could imagine, and makes it so boring that I can't see how they could possibly do it! They dismissed the area where I saw this by saying it looked spooky, but nothing was happening. If you see that episode, by the way, the spot they show has changed a lot. It's well paved and decorated with a marker. It wasn't when I saw it. It was just an empty patch of land.

My sister, Lynn, came along on this camping trip, and she swore she'd never go to another one again!

The incident that inspired this was making a sandwich and finding a bug in it when she ate it! She started screaming bloody murder about finding a bug in her sandwich and my then-uncle, Art, told her not to complain because it could be worse. She demanded to know how it could possibly be worse, and he said "You could've found half a bug!" That was when she went nuts and insisted she'd never go camping ever again!

I had lots of fun that weekend, and hated the smell of black powder when I first smelled it. On Sunday, we had a shooting competition for muzzle loaders, and I got to sit behind the line and watch it with Jean and some of my new friends. A sutler came by selling ice cream, and I at a small tub of vanilla ice cream that was black powder flavored (from all the smoke in the air). After that, I enjoyed the smell of black powder.

Well, enjoy the last little bit of your holiday!

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Addition:

I found a trailer for the new season of Doctor Who, and I thought you might like to see it:

Recovering from Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was wonderful, as usual. I got to see Holly and Robin's new, 52 inch TV, and it's wonderful, but we actually had Thanksgiving dinner in the new bar behind their house.

A while ago, Robin bought a Chinese dragon kite, and he wanted it for decoration. Here's a photo of it on the ceiling in the bar.

And here it is close up:

Here are Holly and Robin behind the bar:

A photo of Robin getting ready to answer a question, it looks like:

And a couple of photos of Holly:

I finally gave up and went home after 1:30 am.

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Before I forget to tell you, Vickie Howell is having her annual book giveaway! Today is the last day to enter, so get right over there!

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For all you knitters out there who need/want a yarn winder, here are instructions for making one of your own for a low cost.

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The ABC Family channel was running the "coundown" to 25 Days of Christmas, but gave up on that for Thanksgiving and Saturday. They're back with some Christmas movies, if anyone cares. I have to admit it, I'm a sucker for those gooey Christmas movies.

BBC in America told the people who put up the digital TV guide that they were going to show the Doctor Who episode, Utopia yesterday, but they really showed Turn Left. I hope they show the two episodes that come after Turn Left (The Stolen Earth and Journey's End). The other two are considered to be a whole story, but I think that Turn Left should be included as part of that story, and it should be a three-parter.

I just looked it up, and they're not showing Doctor Who next Saturday. In that time slot they're showing Torchwood, and they haven't put up any info on which episode yet.

By the way, SyFy is now rerunning Doctor Who on Friday mornings, very early, again, at least for a few more weeks. Next week will be Fires of Pompei. On Christmas Eve (Christmas day) and New Year's Day, they will not be showing Doctor Who. Hopefully, he'll be back in January.

Heroes will be the only new SF programming on Monday. Of course, SyFy will have it's usual reruns of Ghost Whisperer, and there will be reruns of The Big Bang Theory, and Castle. I know Castle isn't SF, but I like Nathan Fillion so much from Firefly.

I have to get going now. I promised John I'd get some more done on the back cover of Volume 3 of the Steve Canyon DVDs over the weekend, and yesterday went in a completely different direction from what I intended, and I didn't get anything done then, so I have to make it up now.

I hope you've all been having a great extended holiday weekend!

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!

Halloween for Knitters

Deadly Knitshade has been having Halloween fun over at the London Stitch 'N Bitch! She wrote a great article for them about how to deal with zombies if you happen to be a knitter. I'm severely tempted to put a photo from the post in here to whet your appetite.

Oh, alright, I'll do it.

Please go and read the article! It's great! And there's a lot more in it than just the photo! And if you're on Twitter, you can follow her at deadlyknitshade.

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In more Halloween fun, I went to the grocery store yesterday, but also took a walk to see if I could get a photo of that wading bird that shows up only if I don't have a camera with me.

I actually managed to walk onto the bridge before I noticed that there were some teenage girls dressed as Zombies, complete with make up taking pictures of each other on the bridge. They were using fake blood that they'd bought. I remarked on the fact that they'd bought it and told them how to make fake blood. Making movie blood is something I learned from Tim Davis while we were working on New Genesis. We had a fun chat, and I told them to look up Tim on Facebook because he's been looking for zombies for the movie he's doing.

The wading bird, needless to say, didn't show up. Considering the crowd on the bridge, I didn't really expect it.

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In knitting news, the body of the sweater is done. I even picked up and knitted the pocket linings I've picked up stitches around the neckline and am currently doing a 2x2 rib. I'd rather do some garter stitch, but since the whole bodice of the sweater is in rib, I think that the stretchier rib is the way to go. Once I finish the neckline, there's only the sleeves to knit, darn in ends, sew down the pocket linings and block it! Most of it is done!

I feel guilty knitting something for myself so close to Christmas, though. I want to make some things to sell on Etsy, and make some more Christmas presents. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you'll find the widget that tells you how many days there are until Christmas. Today, there are exactly 60. That feels like such a long time and such a short time all at once. Only 60 days left to get ready! If you're making presents, get busy!

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Tonight, we have a brand new episode of Heroes, The Big Bang Theory, and Castle.

Castle, in particular, is not-to-be-missed! There will be a dead vampire, references to the Buffy storyline that Nathan Fillion was in, plus, he'll be wearing his Captain Tightpants outfit as a Halloween costume! And, if they're smart, there will be even more in the episode.

Find out more about tonight's Castle episode, as well as Heroes, and highlights of the rest of the week here.

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Well, that was exciting. And now, for something completely different, we have something that I hope is funny.

Have a great evening!

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Addition:

For some additional humor, check this out!

Happy Columbus Day!

Happy Columbus Day, particularly to those of you who have a day off work!

For this blog, it's going to be a Miscellaneous Monday. And to kick off this insanity, here's a great photo with a great story to go with it:

Although, I must say that the photo sort of says it all!

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For those of you who were worried, I found an article that proves that the 21st of December in 2012 will not be the end of the world. According to the article, the people on the History Channel have just misinterpreted some things.

Well, I'm certainly relieved!

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Now we have several different items about knitting.

If you're a knitter and also into fashion, you're in luck this year. Knits are big in both senses of the word in fashion at the moment! Read more about it here!

Knitstorming hits the news in this article.

Has your stash reached SABLE (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy) proportions? Read about yet another scheme to hide your addiction here.

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I'm busy! Sorry! Otherwise I would be blogging more.

This past week, I had a lot going on that I couldn't control, including: having my kitchen completely redone (they ripped things out to the point where only the walls were left--I'm still moving stuff back into it), a dental appointment, and a doctor's appointment. That's on top of the normal stuff.

I'm currently working on the outside cover for Volume 3 of the Steve Canyon DVDs.

I'm not only knitting, but also designing Christmas presents. I'd love to discuss it more here, but can't for obvious reasons. I have just a bit of the toe to do to finish Holly's birthday present socks. The Christmas present socks are done and were delivered on Saturday. She knew all about them and even picked the colors for them, so I saw no reason why she shouldn't be enjoying them right now. On the subject of socks, that leaves only Malaia's socks to do.

But I'm trying to focus on Christmas stockings for all those that I haven't made them for. Which means that you can forget about it, Malaia. I already gave you and John yours.

But that leaves me trying to figure out how to make a festive Christmas stocking in Robin's favorite color, which is black! I am piecing together a concept for that little by little. Actually, I had a concept a while ago. I just have to find the yarn and stuff to put it into practice. Last year, I gave him a black Santa hat.

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There's a new Heroes on tonight! As well as a new Big Bang Theory.

Dead Like Me: Life After Death will be on the SyFy Channel at 5 (locally) in case you missed it the first time it was on, and will be followed by four episodes of Ghost Whisperer.

Have a great evening!

Back from the Sheep and Wool Festival

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend! There's so much to tell that I won't be able to do it all today, so you'll be getting more of the story this week.

For starters, here's some of what I bought while I was there: 

First up is the bone lucet shown above. Wow! a lucet that's nice. And it's made of bone. The distributer is Lacis, and the place I bought it is Carolina Homespun, which has always been one of my favorite places to shop at the festival.

For those of you who don't know, a lucet is a device used to make cord. It's essentially a two pronged knitting frame, similar in effect to a knitting nobby or a spool knitter to make knitted cord. You can see a spool knitter here, but you have to scroll down. With a spool knitter, the tension is determined by the spool, by how far away the nails are. With a lucet, you pull each stitch up snug, so it produces a much firmer cord. 

The cords are useful as drawstrings or laces, and a lucet is a handy thing to have around. One of it's big advantages is that it can fit in a pocket, along with a small ball of yarn that can make many yards of cord. It's a very handy walk-around project, something to take with you to fill idle moments while producing something useful at the same time.

Susan's Fiber Shop had a complete lucet kit with a plastic lucet for sale at the festival, and I should have grabbed it while I had the chance. I'm intrigued by the idea of the bobbins, especially since they keep the yarn from sliding off the fork. The same lucet with bobbin is now available in wood, so don't worry about me calling it plastic.

Susan's is my favorite shop at the festival. She always has something new, and she always has the greatest stuff, and she spends most of the weekend while she's there teaching. There's usually a small group of people standing around blocking things up and watching here demonstrate stuff. Just ask her how to spin, and you'll find yourself at a wheel with a handful of wool before you know it. Or ask her how the combs work and she'll show you.

Anyway, in the next photo, the two big batches of fiber at the top are four ounces each of wool/tussah (80%/20%) from Bullen's Woolens. They're hand dyed, and I'm thinking about making a single of each color and plying them for a combination of purple/blue yarn. I think it's going to work well.

Under the wool/tussah, is some 100% silk yarn that I bought from Mangham Manor, although it was made by Oasis Yarn. It's called Seduction on the label, and all you have to do is touch it to understand why they named it that. There's a whole 100 grams there, and I'm not prepared to say at the moment what I plan to do with it.

More festival tomorrow.

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Today is the first post of the brand new Craft Corps News blog. I've just discovered it (thank you, Vicki Howell!) and haven't really had a chance to explore it, but it looks like it may be fun. Enjoy!

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Doctor Who has been having adventures with Rose all day on the SciFi Channel today.

Chuck and Heroes are over for the season, but there's a brand new, two hour episode of Medium on tonight.

More news tomorrow! Have fun 'till then!

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Addition:

My sister sent me an email. It said:

It was once said that a black man would be president "when pigs fly." Indeed 100 days into Obama's presidency...... Swine flu!

Score One for Stupidity!

In a spectacular display of stupidity, Texas has decided to make sure it's school age residents are unaware of the age of the universe.

Read more about it here.

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I was looking at some of my blog posts from earlier in the week, and realized that I had said I would post a photo of the finished mobius hood.

Then I finished it, took a photo, and posted it on my Ravelry projects page and the page for FOs on the Harry Potter House Cup page.

And I completely forgot to post it here.

So, for those of you who are waiting with baited breath, here it is (finally).

I'm thinking I still have to do a little bit of tweaking before I'm really happy with it. I like it, but not a lot. I'm not overjoyed about the photo, either.

I have decided to give myself a day off on the Christmas stockings.

The first one is completely knitted, sewn up, and woven in. It still needs an overall blocking (looks like a crumpled piece of paper at the moment) and pom poms plus a hanging loop added.

I'm going to wait until I block the leg on the second one, which is easier to do before I start knitting in the round. That way, I can block that part of it flat. That way, I can put off having to make pom poms.

I have finished the name and year on the second one, and am almost to the icicles between the "snow" on  the top and the actual red part of the ankle with the tree and Santa on it.

I may get back to it later today if I finish the poncho I'm making with the yarn that matches the hood, above. The yarn looks very plain, and like a solid color in the photo, but it's really a "printed" yarn in off white with blue dots of varying intensity (along with some tan ones) on it. It looks tweedy in the ball, and I thought it would look that way knitted up, too, but no, it's visually a light blue, even though you can't see it in the photo. I liked this yarn when I bought it, but I like it even more now.

Anyway, it's almost finished, and the kind of weather I wanted to wear it in is suddenly here, so I thought I'd finish it and have it to wear. I'll probably finish it this evening and get back to the stocking.

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There will be new episodes of: Chuck, Heroes, Medium, and Castle on Monday evening!

Well, it's probably over 80 degrees in my apartment again, and almost like a sauna in here, so I'm going to sit (or maybe lie down) and read a book.

Hope you're having a great weekend!

107 Days Until Half Blood Prince

There are 107 days until the premier of The Half Blood Prince!

For all you Harry Potter fans out there who are knitters: have you started your knitting projects so that you'll have something Harry-Potter-themed to wear to the movie? If not, you need to get started in time! You don't want to go to the movie without your Dobby socks, dark mark scarf, snitch sweater and other stuff. It's a shame it'll be during the summer instead of in the winter like some of them have been.

If you're on Ravelry, search there for Harry Potter projects, otherwise, you'll have to use search engines. Whatever you do, there's a lot out there, so get those needles clicking!

Don't forget that there is a count-down timer at the bottom of this page. It not only tells you how long until the movie, but it also has a link to Mugglenet, which is filled with all sorts of wonderfull Harry Potter news!

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Which reminds me that I have to have my mobius hood finished today to turn in as homework for the Harry Potter House Cup KAL/CAL! All I have to do is weave in some ends and take a photo. Oh, and get it up on Ravelry. 

So, you can expect a photo tomorrow.

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This will be a short post. I've just finished putting the barcode on the cover for the second volume of the Steve Canyon DVDs, and I'll be uploading it to a server in a bit, so I can't hang here too long. I may be wrong about this, but the sense I get from it is that John has all the files and stuff he needs to dump it on the DVD manufacturer, and it's about to be out of his hands for a bit. I'm sure that will be a big relief to him. Then all he'll have to do is wait for the DVDs and feverishly ship them out when they arrive. 

I'm really enthused about this!

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Comcast messed up NBC all last night. This is so run-of-the-mill for them that you may wonder why I'm even mentioning it. For three hours on NBC (and maybe more--I only watched it for three hours), the picture would periodically freeze for from one to 5 seconds, sometimes followed by the picture breaking up into large pixels, which then smashed up and slid off the screen. The sound was going in and out, and the story was interspersed with blackouts of sound and picture for several seconds. I got to watch Chuck, Heroes and Medium in that messed-up way. Castle was playing OK, though, and at least I got to see and hear that without all the mess.

There is no Fringe on tonight, but it's supposed to be back next week. I don't know what's wrong with TV networks today. They only have short runs of shows (Star Trek used to have 25 shows per season, now we only get 13 episodes of a series if we're lucky), they interrupt them with other stuff rather than showing the whole series, change the times of shows, and generally do everything they can to sabotage their own series, and then get rid of the series as though it's the fault of the series. It's disgusting!

There will be a new Mentalist on tonight, along with a new Reaper, though.

I have to run.

Have a great Tuesday!

Happy Monday!

Well, in the last 24 hours, my mobius hood has exploded from something that looked just a little longer than it did the day before to starting to look like a real hood!


It doesn't look in the photo like it would fit as well as it does in real life. Well, I did some shaping on the hood, and I still have some doubts about this project. I think it's really turning out nice, so far, though.

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For those of you who don't know, the SciFi Channel has discovered that they can't trademark/register/copyright/whatever the term "SciFi." So they have embarked on a journey to find the perfect new name for their network. They have chosen SyFy as their new name. I read one report that insisted that they chose it because that's how they would spell it in a text message.

First of all, I doubt that they can't trademark it. Blaster, and a lot of other basic SF words were successfully trademarked in the past, which seems really silly to me. Unless someone else has already trademarked it.

Io9 has some really funny articles about this. The first one I saw was named SciFi Channel Changes It's Name to a Typo, and it was just an announcement of the change. The second one, 25 Other Names the SciFi Channel Could Rebrand With was funny. My favorite on the list was "Sci-Fi Except For All That Wrestling Channel," although I also liked "Zzzzzzzzzy-Phy."

Then there was a post called "15 More Alternate Names for the SciFi Channel," which continued the funny theme. One of my favorites from this list was the "I Cant Spel But I Kin Txt Chanel."

Here's what SciFi has to say about the name change in their own words. The theme that keeps repeating is the idea of "a name we can own." There was also a poll on your opinion of the new name in the sidebar. I voted against it, but it seems to be gone now. I can't find it on their site. But when I voted, the score was something like 157 for and over a half million against. I suspect they took it down because they didn't like the general direction in which it was headed.

But they are doing something good tomorrow during the day. They have reruns of Eureka on! On Wednesday, there will be episodes of Tru Calling on their daytime rotation, too.

This weekend, actually Friday evening at nine (here) they're showing Stargate: Ark of Truth for all of you, like me who haven't been able to scrape up the money for the DVD, even though it's not very expensive.

I suspect they're doing that to make it up to us for showing Beowulf last weekend. I didn't think anything or anybody could mess up a fine, classic, Icelandic saga as badly as Grendel, but Beowulf gave it a run for it's money.

NBC will be showing their usual Monday night science fiction shows, Chuck, Heroes, and Medium, and we'll be treated to another episode of Castle at the same time as Medium. The Monday night lineup is currently good for all old Firefly fans because we can get to see both Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin! It's just a shame Castle isn't science fiction (or fantasy).

Well, there's lots to do today, so I'd better get going.

Have a great day!

Steve Canyon Front Cover Announced!

John announced the front cover of the new Steve Canyon  Volume 2 DVD! We've been working on it, and finally got to a point where we agreed that it was done.

The back cover is also finalized except for some possible last-minute changes in the wording of some of the text, and the disk labels are almost done. Well, except for the front cover, it's all almost done.

John has been working so hard on this. I will be really happy when my part is done so at least that part of it will be out of his hair.

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I've been working hard on the first sock from the yarn I bought at JoAnn Fabrics. The heel flap is done, the heel is turned, and I've picked up the stitches for the gusset.

I actually got further than that last night, but then noticed the sock had a hole in it. I must've missed knitting the last stitch on the heel flap, and it started to unravel, thereby freeing all the stitches that had been picked up for the gusset. 

Usually, if you drop a stitch, you can just latch it up, but it was a column of stitches that had the gusset fastened to them, and the whole sock was unraveling! So, I knitted a whole lot last night, and then had to frog almost the whole heel and start over again.

I'm still very ambivalent about the colors in this, but I have to say it looks very Spring-like. And I have so few socks that I'll be wearing them even if I don't like them. I don't really dislike them, but I haven't gotten to a point where I like them.

The sock pattern is wonderful, though, and I'll write it up and post it here soon. It's a very plain sock pattern, but really makes comfortable socks. If your goal is comfortable socks, this is the pattern you want.

Have a great evening and enjoy Chuck, Heroes and Medium!

Happy Monday!

I spent the day riding around on buses and walking a lot while doing errands. It was back to WalMart for me, so that I could get the vitamins I didn't get while I was there with Holly. And, as usual, WalMart had a lot of things that I didn't realized I needed. 

I had been thinking the other day that I needed a stapler, but didn't want to spend the $15 or $20 for a good one. Wally had one that never needs staples and stamps little blue stars around the non-staple. For $4! And now that I've writen about it, I realize that is wasn't in any of he packages when I got home. I'll have to look again.

But the true monarch of impulse buying is Dollar Tree! 

I was in there a bit more than a week ago, and bought, among other things, a dishtowel which I discovered was very nice when I got it home and started using it. So, I went back for more, and found lots of stuff that I really needed or was going to buy somewhere else. I keep hearing good things about Robert Jordan, and had planned someday to buy one of his books, but they had the first book in the Wheel of Time series. So, that was one of the things I came home with.

What a busy day!

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I hope you had a chance to appreciate Dead Like Me, which was on SciFi during their daytime rotation today. Tomorrow, they'll have Haunted, the Matthew Fox cop show where he can speak to ghosts due to a near-death experience. If you watch closely, you'll see him sporting part, but not all, of the tattoo that he wears in Lost!

Tonight we have Chuck back with a new episode! Followed by new episodes of Heroes and Medium, all on NBC.

Have a great evening!

Hold onto your Hats!

There's a full moon tonight!

Just thought you might like to know.

Maybe that explains the unseasonably warm weather we've been having,

New Heroes and Medium tonight!

Enjoy it all!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Also, for those of you so inclined, happy Imbolc! According to Wikipedia, it's a time of weather prognostication, so maybe that's where we got groundhog day. 

I don't have a groundhog, but if one where here, he would see his shadow, which means 6 more weeks of winter. It's supposed to rain this afternoon, so maybe if the groundhog slept late, we might have an early spring. Then again, it may be different where you live. Individual results will vary.

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Doctor Who is on all daytime on SciFi today, and you just missed Blink! But there are two more. Sorry I forgot to mention that yesterday. No Lost tonight.

But, tonight on NBC, they'll be bringing back Chuck, Heroes and Medium! And Chuck will be in 3D! Get your free 3D glasses where they sell Pepsi products.

Have a great day, and I hope Spring comes soon!

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PS--Crazy Aunt Purl was doing her usual crazy thing and speaking about the new year yesterday. She claims that 2009 is really almost 2010, and that tickles her for some reason. She's turned off comments, so I feel justified in commenting on her post here. 

It got me started thinking. In a few years, it'll be 2020, which, I suppose, should be voted the year for good eyesight.

Click on the first link and you can see today's post, which I won't spoil by describing it here except to say that it includes a sort of porn.

High of 56 Degrees!

The bus company around here is all mixed up.

Right now, the weather report I just looked at says the high today will be 56 degrees, but that it is currently 60 degrees. It always makes me giggle when they do this. Oh, and there is glorious sunshine, and I plan to go out when I finish this.

Anyway, on a beautiful day like today, the buses aren't running. But tomorrow, when we expect rain, the buses will be going full force. At least it will be warm tomorrow. Tuesday, when I'll have the money to do my errands, it will be snowing.

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For any of you Medieval fans, please check out the sidebar for Designs Toscano. They just sent me an email saying that I haven't sold anything through the link, so they're going to cut me off.

If you are interested in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, please check it out. They're a great company and have stuff I know you'll love and want to buy. No kidding! My ex-husband used to work there, and bought me this from them for Christmas one year.

They always have a dozen things I want!

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On Monday evening, Chuck will be back and NBC will bring back Heroes and Medium, too. The interesting thing about Chuck is that it will be (ornate fanfare). . . in 3D! The reason I'm telling you about this now is that to see it in 3D (rather than a blurry mess) you'll need 3D glasses. It took me a bit of searching, but I eventually discovered that all this is because of Superbowl Sunday (which, for you non sports fans, like me, is today).

It turns out that the Superbowl will have a batch of commercials in 3D, so lots of places are distributing 3D glasses free. The ones I got were from Safeway, and some CVS stores are also distributing them. The distributers of Pepsi have out a drink I've never heard of before, and you can get the glasses almost anywhere that distributes Pepsi. They come in a sheet of 4 and you can punch part of them out, but you have to cut some of it out. So you have to take the whole sheet.

The SciFi Channel had Lost listed for all evening on Monday until a few days ago, but they've changed their minds at the last minute, and reruns of Lost will not be on SciFi on Monday.

I'm going to go out and enjoy the day! I hope you have weather as nice as mine so you can do the same!

Snowed Under with Work

The world seems to want to make sure that I have good grasp of the meaning of the word Entropy.

The last definition of that is more what I mean in this context: "a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration."

The world seems to be determined to keep messing things up for me, and usually on a financial basis. Well, sometimes on a health basis, or, as one of my current problems, something that broke, but is going to cost me a lot of time and effort (and probably some money) to fix. More about that later.

The IRS, in it's logical fashion, started taking money out of my monthly Social Security payment last year to satisfy a debt that was a bit over $500. They took over $300 out of my payments, and then decided that since they owed me enough to pay the rest, that  they'd stop doing that. But instead of applying it to my account, they sent it to me. So, now they say that it means that I owe them almost a thousand dollars.

I spent some time discussing it with them today. The outcome is not happy, but better than what they originally planned to do to me.

I've been trying to get in touch with the VA Hospital near here to get one of the hearing aids they gave me to use fixed, and probably return the other one due to almost total hearing loss in the other ear. The part of this that's really frustrating to me is that I'm pretty certain that the hearing in that ear could be improved tremendously, and possibly restored completely, but the last person I saw about it (an ear, nose and throat specialist at the VA Hospital) said that there was nothing wrong with my ear and then asked "So, why can't you hear?" Which was kind of the question that I came to him to answer.

I'm getting really tired of doctors asking me the very questions that I came to them to answer. 

But you can never get through to the hospital on the phone. You just get to leave a message and wait by the phone all day to have them call you back. It's frustrating.

Tomorrow I'm going to work on getting something done about my front teeth before I don't have them any more. Or maybe later today if I get a call back and am not worried about making a call and missing the call from the hospital.

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I also have two projects that need to be done.

One is the Christmas stocking commission. That's going well. I'm almost through the colorwork on the leg of the last stocking, which will leave some very easy knitting, and then some finishing work.

The other one is the cover for the second volume of the Steve Canyon DVDs. I have a lot to do on that. The cover photo was taken in color, but the only surviving copy of it is black and white. And while the scan of the photo is excellent, the photo itself is covered with dust, dirt, and scratches. 

So, there's a lot of restoration work before I can even apply the colors and make it into the background for the cover.

And I haven't even designed the inside cover yet. Not to mention that there has been no decision made yet about the photo for the back cover.

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Now on the happy news! The science fiction shows that were off for the holidays will be returning soon, except for those casualties of the networks.

On the 31st of January, G4 will be running a Heroes marathon, pretty much all day.

On the second of February, we hit the jackpot, at least as far as NBC is concerned. 

Chuck will be back with an opening episode in 3D! That means that you'll need special glasses to watch it and get the 3D effect. I can't find any information on the internet about where NBC expects you to get these glasses, though.

Heroes will be back the same night, too! You knew there was a reason why G4 would be running a marathon!

Medium will also be back the same evening.

Later, at a date I haven't been able to pin down at the moment, the long-awaited premier of Dollhouse is coming up for all you Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku fans.

Fast forwarding to March will bring us the premier of Castle! For all you Nathan Fillion fans, he'll be starring in it, and that's enough for me. But it looks like it has the potential to be a great series, too. Nathan will be playing the role of Rick Castle, a fictional famous author of crime and horror novels. Rick helps the police solve crimes.

In the more immediate future, the SciFi Channel will be running random episodes of Lost tonight. They've already caught up to the the premier of the show last week, and are just running through some highlights.

NBC will be showing the second half of The Last Templar at 9 tonight. It was listed for last night, but I didn't realize that it was a mini-series and that they weren't just showing the same movie again tonight. Woops!

And Wednesday night, of course, we have an episode of Lost from last week followed by a new one!

It's almost 5 pm, and the Hospital still hasn't called. I doubt that they'll be calling me back this late, so I guess I can stop carrying the phone around with me everywhere I go.

Have a great evening!

Quick Post! (again)

I was really busy yesterday, and I have lots to do today, so this will be quick.

I finally got the rest of the yarn for the stockings ordered. I tried over the weekend, but the JoAnn Fabrics website was malfunctioning and wouldn't let me actually pay for the order and place it. I had better luck on the phone today. I also got the order for the DP needles for the heel part ordered from Knit Picks.

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I've been darning in ends and finishing a pile of projects that just needed ends woven in but were otherwise finished. Some of those projects will need blocking, too, but I'm saving those up to do in one batch. 

I now have a dedicated box that is collecting finished Christmas presents that are ready to wrap and give. Once I finish all the projects that are almost done, it will be a lot more full.

I also ordered the stuff I need to make Christmas cards. Now that I have a working printer, I ordered the card stock, envelopes and some glitter glue. I seriously never thought I'd be putting glitter glue on anything, but the art I'm using for the cards almost screams out for it. I suspect that the little wreath I got for my apartment door will look really smashing with it, too. The glue I ordered is clear with glitter that is also clear, but iridescent. I saw some commercial wreaths that had something similar to this last year, and they were beautiful.

I also plan to make some nifty Christmas ornaments to include with the cards.

Oh, and I ordered a punch to use to make hang tags from for stuff I've knitted. I plan to update my logo, and these should make really neat tags with the logo.

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For knitters/crocheters/craftspeopls/fans of Firefly, Buffy, etc., Joss Whedon gave an interview about crochet, knit, and crafts in general at crochetme.com. You can see a transcript of the interview here. He even discusses Jayne's hat.

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The Librarian trilogy on TNT yesterday was wonderful! If you missed the new one, Curse of the Judas Chalise, it will be on later in the week, along with Leverage, which is the best pilot I've seen in a long while. Check your local listings for Tuesday evening for precise times.

Tuesday evening, the pilot for Leverage will be on again, followed by the second episode. The second one will be on at the same time as Fringe and The Mentalist, but if you want to see all three, Leverage will be repeated later in the evening.

Tonight, we'll be having the usual four new episodes of Lost on SciFi, plus new Chuck, Heroes, and My Own Worst Enemy on NBC.

I need to go and get stuff done!

Have a great evening!