Valentine's Day Is Tomorrow!

I'm dragging myself out of a hypothyroid stupor to write this, so I hope you appreciate it!

I'll start with Valentine's Day. Do check the link. There's a lot of history in the Wikipedia listing, and it's very interesting!

Anyway, Crazy Aunt Purl has two blog posts up about Valentine's Day. The first one has a link to a contest, but I'm mentioning this first because the contest ends at midnight tonight, so if you want to enter, do it quickly. I already entered!

The second one is just a wonderful read, written by a woman who has really found herself. She makes me feel happier after reading this than I have in a few days, and is worth the read. Very inspiring!

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If you're entered in the Knitting Olympics, The Yarn Harlot has a post up about it here. If you follow her on Twitter, you'll know that she went nuts last night because NBC didn't broadcast the opening ceremonies in real time, but delayed it for quite a while. She was upset that she didn't know exactly when they lit the big torches in the stadium so she could cast on. If you're reading this right after I write it, I retweeted some of her comments, and you should still be able to read them in my tweets in the sidebar.

I recorded the opening ceremonies on my DVR (such as it is) and watched other stuff last night, mostly from my DVR, because although CBS said earlier in the week that they would show a new (I think) Ghost Whisperer and Medium, they decided at the last minute not to do it, and showed junk instead. I can only assume that they thought everyone would be watching the Opening Ceremonies, so why bother showing anything worth watching? I was disappointed!

So, anyway, I watched stuff on my DVR and kept switching to the opening ceremonies, wondering when the torch in the stadium would be ignited. I did that for several hours before getting distracted by a ghost story, and really shared Steph's exasperation! First of all, they had 1-1/2 hours of not opening ceremonies in their opening ceremonies. I think it's a terrible tragedy that the luge went out of control and that someone died, but I didn't feel it was really essential to watch it several times, even though NBC obviously did.

And then, there were hours of inane programming. I did like that everyone in the audience had flashlights, and that they all had them on and were waving them. Maybe it would have been more impressive if I was watching the whole thing, from beginning to end, but I just tuned in periodically, usually in the middle of something, thinking "What is this?" Sheets pulled up to look like mountains (?) with skiers and snow boarders floating in the air? What's that all about?

Part of my annoyance and disinterest is because I waffled around for a while trying to decide on a project to make for the Knitting Olympics. When I finally made a decision, it was late enough that although it was possible for the post office to get my Knit Picks order to me yesterday, it wasn't very likely, and in fact, didn't happen. I'm not supposed to be able to get packages on the weekend, even if the post office delivers it today, I theoretically can't get it. I'm going to try to at least find out if my package was delivered today, and if it was, I'm going to try to get it.

I may sign up for the Ravelympics with a small project to keep me feeling like I'm doing something until my package arrives.

So, since I couldn't cast on during opening ceremonies, I was bummed (over and above being depressed by the hypothyroidism), and didn't really want to watch something on TV when I couldn't participate in it.

Which leads me to my other frustration about the Olympics. I used to love to play sports (except baseball). Watching other people play sports, though, is just boring! The Olympics does have some sports that are interesting and unusual enough that I do enjoy watching them on TV (especially figure skating), but the Opening Ceremonies is not one of them.

I'll feel better and write happier after my thyroid problem is solved.

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My DVR has developed an aversion to next Thursday, just like it did to that Wednesday last month when it wouldn't display any digital TV guide data at all! Trying to watch TV without a clue what's on is very frustrating! I really hope that my TiVo is installed by Thursday so that I don't have to contend with the piece of junk that Comcast fobbed off on me!

I got an email yesterday about the Shorty awards (awards for people who tweet on Twitter), and one of the categories was about the most helpful service tweeters, and they listed someone from Comcast. I've been tweeting to her about my many, many problems with Comcast. We'll see if she's actually helpful. Nobody else at Comcast is actually helpful! They are polite, and say things that make you think they're trying to help, but 99.9% of the time, they don't do anything to help!

If you're looking for TV service, do NOT choose Comcast! They haven't delivered what they promised in any one month of the over three years I've had service with them, but they've charged full price for the pitiful excuse for service, and even managed to find ways to get me to have to pay even more than I agreed to pay for what they're not delivering! As I've said many times, if I could get any other TV service here, I would've switched within the first two days of "service." At the moment, I'm currently hoping that having a TiVo can eliminate them to a greater extent. I do know that it's possible to watch some shows with TiVo via the internet, and I'm going to do everything in my power to eliminate all but the most basic service from Comcast.

To be fair, their internet service seems OK, but overpriced.

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SyFy will be having some good daytime programming on all next week! Monday will bring us V, Tuesday they're showing Joan of Arcadia, Wednesday it's Haunted (with Matthew Fox--check out part of his famous Lost tattoo!), Thursday brings First Wave, and Friday we have Sanctuary.

Most of the shows that have been showing new episodes did their season finales last week. Of course, there's still Lost on Tuesday, which is almost worth not having new episodes of everything else. The Big Bang Theory and Castle might or might not be new. My digital TV Guide says there's no information available (as usual). There's a new Human Target on Wednesday and The Deep End and Past Life on Thursday (they're new shows and don't have anything to rerun). I haven't seen The Deep End at all yet because there were other things I wanted to see more, but I have it marked to record on my cruddy DVR and with any luck, I'll actually record it on my TiVo. Human Target and Past Life are excellent new shows and I heartily recommend them! There's one show that showed part one of their finale last week and will be finishing it this week. Thanks to the brain fog caused by the hypothyroidism, I can't remember which one. Aren't I helpful?

I'll be so glad when the drug stores can get my medicine again! I hate feeling this way!

Have a fabulous weekend, and there will be a new episode of Legend of the Seeker on Sunday night!

Welcome to Stupidity

Armor Thyroid (which is a medicine I take for hypothyroidism) was reformulated just a bit more than a year ago. Then they quit making it altogether.

I have just a little of it left, and if I can't get some soon, I will have to go without the medicine I need.

The reformulation of the medicine included changing the sugar filler for cellulose, and that might sound like a good thing, but it isn't. The tiny amount of sugar allowed many people who took it to put it under their tongue and absorb it sublingually. The new filler makes that impossible, and manages to keep the medicine from being absorbed as well. In addition to that, although I haven't found anybody who has mentioned this on line, there seems to be a very thin film covering the actual tablet. They don't make pills in the strength I need, so I have to resort to cutting pills in half. I used to be able to do that with just the tiniest bit of crumbling, but now when I do that, the two halves stick together and I have to yank them apart because they're still fastened together by the coating on the tablet. That has got to affect the ability to absorb the medicine.

What all this means is that although I'm taking the same amount that I was (according to the amount stated on the bottle), I'm not able to get all the medicine that's in the pill. So, over the past year, I've been getting too little thyroid medicine, and I've been like a clock that's running down.

Today, I hit the point where I just can't think straight anymore. I want to do things, but get distracted, can't make decisions, don't know what to do, have no ambition.

I have an appointment Thursday to see the doctor who took all those tests last month to find out how the tests came out, and what can be done.

The Armor Thyroid people have said that they will be going back to their former formulation, and that it will be available soon. In fact, it should be available now. But at this point, it's not. Neither is another brand (Naturethroid) that is the same as the original Armor formulation and which was shipped on the 28th of December from the manufacturer. I know that it takes a while. The drug goes from the manufacturer to the distributer to the drug store distributer to the individual drug store.

Whatever happens, I am going to try to get a written prescription so that I can call around and find a drug store that actually has the medicine. If worst comes to worst, maybe I can get it from Canada.

And in the meantime, I may not put up as many posts, and you've probably noticed that my posts have been less and less interesting over time.

I'm sorry. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better soon and will do better.

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I competed in the Knitting Olympics four years ago, and it was fun, even though I didn't finish my project on time! The Yarn Harlot is running it again in a very low-key way, and I have put up a comment on her blog saying that I'll compete, but I don't have a clue what I'll knit (see brain fog above).

I also want to enter the Ravelympics, but am having lots of trouble trying to decide what to make for that. The WIP Dancing event (called WIP Wrestling in the last Summer Ravelympics) sounds like a good candidate.

Just thinking about the Knitting Olympics reminds me of four years ago, when I was working on preliminary planning for Fade Out, a science fiction movie that just kind of fell apart, and never happened. I still have the script for it around here somewhere.

I need more medicine. I'm rambling. On to another topic!

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All last week, the news people were going crazy over the weather situation here. Local channels preempted regular programming and had people standing around, talking about snow for hours! There was some mention of a few snow flurries that they (then) expected today and tomorrow.

Well, now that today is here, it has suddenly changed from "a few snow flurries" to "a Winter Weather Advisory!" They've been predicting something like another 20 inches!

All this was supposed to start around noon today.

Nobody told Mother Nature.

Right around noon, the sun came almost completely out from behind the clouds, and it was sunny enough that I wore my sunglasses, and could see shadows. It's about 5 pm now, and so far, not a flake has fallen.

That's not a complaint. There's about 20 inches of snow already on the ground, and it's piled up way over my head in the places it's been plowed. Here's hoping that the weather people are totally wrong about this snow!

I did take photos of the last snowfall, and as soon as I get the energy to get the photos out of my camera and into my computer, I'll put them up here. See info on brain fog above.

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Lost is on tonight! ABC will be showing the second half to the two hours they showed last week, and following it with a new one hour episode!

There's also a brand new show on called Past Life on Fox. I don't know much about it, but I feel sorry for it that it's on Fox, a network that likes to spend money putting shows on so that it can kill the shows as soon as they develop a fan base.

And, of course, a new episode of White Collar.

I'm going to collapse for a while and try to drum up enough energy to at least be able to think a little. Maybe even have dinner.

Hope you're feeling much better than I am!