Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I wish you a happy Valentine's Day, and hope that you get to spend at least a part of it with someone you love!

I've also found a poem for you from Neil Gaiman!

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Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! This is the year of the tiger! For you fiberartists out there, the year of the sheep will not happen again until 2015. I happen to have the sheep as my astrological symbol. Which I think is totally appropriate!

And good luck to all of you competing in the Olympics, the Knitting Olympics, and the Ravelympics.

Although I still don't have the yarn to start, I plan to do some knitting today and also some spinning!

It's cold and the ground is covered in snow (where it hasn't been plowed or shoveled), but the sun is shining, and it's a glorious day! I also plan to get out and walk around a bit.

Have a fabulous weekend!

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!

...And More Snow!

I woke up for a short while around 8 this morning, and there was no snow coming down.

At 11, when I woke up again, there was snow falling, but there didn't seem to be much accumulation since my previous check.

The local TV people have preempted all their regular programming, and they have news and weather people deployed all over the area with yardsticks and other measuring equipment saying things like "Wow! Look at all that snow!" and making and throwing snowballs or trying to play with toy trucks in the snow.

They've been telling people that the Potomac Mills Mall is open, but that most of the stores in the mall are closed, giving schedules of when various stores will be open, and then telling everybody to stay home.

They've been broadcasting images of plows and salt trucks at work and interviewing their drivers. We got to see an organized and previously scheduled snowball fight, plus an impromptu igloo built by a news crew. And, if you want to get on TV today, all you have to do is get stuck in the snow with a 4 wheel drive vehicle! There are lots of dummies who did just that, and had their stupidity proclaimed on network TV!

There are also lots of gratuitous shots of the Capitol building with snow falling in the front of it, too. Suspiciously, the ones I saw showed a sunny Capitol with no snow on it behind the snow that was falling. I suspect something underhanded.

At least it's better than watching snow fall at the Vienna Metro Station for a half hour, like we got to do last night!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, there's lots of snow around at the moment! One of the people on Twitter is calling it the Snowpocalypse!

The person on TV near Potomac Mills Mall (in front of Silver Diner, which is giving 25% off to anyone who braves the snow to eat there today) measured 21 inches of snow, and she said that there is an icy coating under that, which makes it an even deeper total snowfall. It looks like a bit less than that here, but it's hard to tell, because although the snow was wet, heavy big flakes for part of yesterday, it's switched back to the light, tiny, cold flakes that it started with, and it's drifting. A lot! Not to mention the areas that have been plowed.

The guy who was hired to plow the parking lot at my apartment building really was taking his job seriously last night. He plowed non-stop up until somewhere between 2 and 3 am today, at which point, he apparently went home to take a nap. Twelve hours and about nine inches later, he's back, hard at work.

The people who own the cars parked in front will have a lot of work clearing them off, once the snow stops and they want to go somewhere. One poor person with a compact car will have the major obstacle of finding his car before he can even think about clearing it out! It's at a point where the car itself is not visible anywhere, it just looks like a snow drift.

John called last night and requested that I post photos of all the snow. I took some photos earlier, but they're really bad. The snow has stuck to my windows and frozen there, so the camera wants to focus on that, rather than on the scene outside. And the ones where it is focused outside, the snow on the windows obstructs the view so much that they're not clear or easy to see.

This is a photo from the 19th of December, but it looks almost the same out there from time to time today. The difference is that there isn't a light covering of snow over my window.

I'll take photos once the snow stops and I can get out to take them without the obstruction of the snow on the windows.

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John called last night in a panic wanting to know what was on TV last night! He checked my blog, and didn't see anything about the TV schedule! Sorry John!

Tonight, on BBC in America, there will be a Doctor Who episode, and two Demon episodes, followed tomorrow night by two Doctor Who specials, Planet of the Dead, and Waters of Mars.

Tonight, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone will be on ABC.

The Legend of the Seeker will be on the CW (here) Sunday night, one rerun (your last chance to see Jolene Blaylock on LotS) followed by a new episode.

Pretty pathetic, isn't it?

To liven things up, you can check out an article on io9 about Dollhouse.

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Ravelry has it's Ravelympics reving up, ready to go at the beginning of the Olympics.

The person who inspired the Ravelympics with her Knitting Olympics, The Yarn Harlot, has been deluged with questions about her Knitting Olympics, and whether she's going to have them this time. You can read her answer and get the info here (scroll down).

Make your decisions and pick your teams and sign up. And make sure you have yarn on hand to cast on during the opening ceremonies!

I'm going back to the window to check the progress of the snow.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope you don't get snowed in!

Ravelympics: The Sequel

It turns out that I also got a medal for the Design Discus, since I entered the wimple in that event, too. I just didn't get it until yesterday.

I'm really going to be impressed when I finish the sweater, which, despite lots of knitting, hasn't gotten much longer, so there's not much to see.

On the home front, I got an email from Holly saying "I'm sorry."

It turns out that Robin got up early on Sunday morning, and managed to get her up and awake while he was doing it. Then Malaia called and asked "Are you sure you don't want to go to the Renfair today?"

Well, she went, and a good time was had by all.

She and Malaia were particularly impressed with a new shop at the fair: Grichels. They each bought a handbag, and Holly also got a checkbook cover. From what I can see on the website, I suspect it's a little like the wallet with teeth that Hagrid gave Harry in the Harry Potter books.

In the meantime, I'm still knitting and still filling out forms.

There's a new episode of Eureka on the SciFi Channel tonight, along with some reruns: one from last season, and one that was new last week in case you missed it.

This isn't science fiction, but there's the two hour season premier of Bones on Fox tomorrow night.

In the meantime, I'm still filling out forms and knitting.

Have a great Tuesday!

And the Celtic Sweater Goes On and On...

So, here we are, the day after the Ravelympics has ended, and I'm still not done!

Here's where I am:

To your left, the cable down the front of the sweater is just out of view. To the left (in the picture) is the pocket opening, and along the right side of the photo is the sleeve opening (at the top, the cable on the side, and the increase shaping at the bottom.

I don't like short sweaters or jackets, but if a sweater or jacket is the same diameter as the bust further down, it bunches up when you sit or move, so I wanted the bottom to be a little bigger, hence the shaping, and the space for a knot. 

The knot inside the shaping was started using the knot from Arans & Celtics, but I changed it a bit, and started to add more after the instructions ran out. At this point, there are no patterns, charts or instructions. I'm just winging it. We'll see what happens.

The Middleman will be on tonight with an all-new episode on ABC Family. I looked at the site yesterday, and they had an article up about the last episode, but it's not there now. They said that they had a choice between two episodes, and putting all their budget into one episode. So, we're going to see one episode less than if they had chosen the other option, but they insist that it will be fabulous! I don't know if tonight's episode will be the last one.

Some of the things they mentioned about the last episode are:

They will stumble into an alternate universe where good and bad are reversed a la Mirror, Mirror, the Star Trek episode. To further emphasize that connection, all the people in the evil universe will have goatees, like the alternate Spock. 

They also plan to have Ida be incredibly sexy. Are we talking about the same Ida?

I have lots of forms to fill out, so I'm going to run.

Have a great Monday!

Ravelympics Is Over

Well, I did finish one event in the Ravelympics. They had this to say about the winners:

Congratulations on a successful challenge accomplished with effortless grace! Please accept this Ravatar bouquet from the beautiful Bobicii Nereids for a job well done,
and this medal from the head of the International Ravelympic Committee, Adonis Dionysius Bobicus Maximus.

And now please rise for the Ravelry International Anthem.
dum…dedumdum..de…dummmdedumdidoh…..(crescendo)…Dah!!!

Raucous applause and cheering erupts from the stands and mmm chocolate bars are thrown to the Ravlympians, and a cacophony of various Ravelry Anthems are heard across the stands…!

They did post all this almost precisely 10 hours before the end of  the Olympics closing ceremony, though. I can only guess that they wanted to get a head start on it.

And, once again, here is the photo of the finished wimple:

I'm missing Lord of the Rings on TNT by posting this, so I'm going to get back to it.

I hope you've been having a good weekend!

Knitting Furiously!

Well the Celtic sweater has reached that point where I knit and knit and it stays the same.

Actually, it achieved about an extra 1.5 inches in length yesterday, if you want to be technical. 

Have I mentioned that there are a lot of stitches on the needle? I do remember saying that it had more than twice as many stitches on the needle than it did when it was just the back I was knitting.

I hate to sew seams. When I'm done knitting this, I'll have lots of ends to darn in, but no seams to sew. Otherwise it would never be done. But this is the downside of it. Knitting and knitting and knitting, and nothing happens.

I was planning to have some pretty photos for you today, but 1.5 inches of progress is almost impossible to see in a photo, so it's not really worth taking them.

Other than that, my life has been filled with paperwork. That translates to forms. Forms for things I haven't imagined. The universe has dedicated itself to ways that it can get money away from me, and the only way I can prevent that is by filling out tons of forms. I'm drowning in them.

I had planned to get them all filled out and in the mail on Monday, but I didn't even have most of the forms to fill out. I printed some from the internet, and found someone today (who I had to go see in person) who found some of the more abstruse ones that I filled out, and there are still more that I haven't had time to do sitting there waiting.

I've decided that I will spend normal working hours working on it, and spend evenings, etc. doing my own thing. Translation: knitting.

If there's something I can be knitting for you, make a donation, and get in touch. I'll start at the end of the Ravelympics.

Oh, and I've signed up for a Harry Potter KAL that starts on September the first, so if I can knit some Harry Potter stuff for you, let me know. It will fit right in.

Oh, and Designs Toscano is having a sale: Save up to 70% on Design Toscano Clearance items

Have a great evening!

Pennsic Aftermath and Ravelympics

Today is the day I really don't envy people who had a chance to go to Pennsic!

Today is laundry day for them, and there's generally SO much laundry that the only thing to do is go to a laundromat and get it over with. There are mundane clothes, garb, and textile camping stuff, not to mention bedding. And they've all been out in the ragweed for a week or more, gathering up all sorts of other potential allergens in addition to the ragweed and grass pollen.

I don't miss that part at all.

Celtic sweater update: I spent all day yesterday and this morning trying to get the band around the neckline knitted. I've ripped it out so many times that I've lost count.

At this point, it seems as though it's going to be all right. I just have an inch to go, and the buttonloop, but I tried on the hood, and I think it's going to be good.

Because the neck opening is lower in front, it means that the hood fits fairly closely around the face, but blouses out nicely over the shoulders and around the back. It doesn't look like a sweatshirt hood, it looks like a hood on a cloak. The kind you see in Medieval movies.

I've run the rib off the band at the shoulders and the back. The shoulder break will go into the cable on the saddle shoulder band, and the back break will go into a loop at the back neck on the back of the sweater. That last wasn't needed, but I can, so I did.

Right now, it doesn't look like anything. Once I knit the shoulder cables, it will start to look recognizable.

Tonight there's a new Middleman! And I've figured out how to get to see the closed captioning, even though Comcast is not sending out the signal correctly. I'd be happier with them if they could just send it out correctly, but NO, they just don't care.

So, the first episode of Middleman I've seen with the sound available was last week. It's so much funnier than it is without sound!

I need to get back to the band around the bottom of the hood so that I can get it finished, start on the top of the fronts, and maybe even get started on the top of the back today. If I can do all that, I have a shot at finishing it for the Ravelympics.

Have a great Monday!

Pennsic is Over, but the Ravelympics Goes On...

Well, Pennsic is officially over. There's just enough time today to pack stuff into the vehicle and get on the road before you have to be off the site.

And the trip home isn't always fun.

One year, we were so disorganized, that it took us most of the day to get ourselves packed and on the road. After a week out in the ragweed (to witch I'm allergic), I carried/moved/dragged a lot more stuff then I should have that day, and went to sleep in the back of the van.

Steve woke me up and told me that I would have to drive home because he was tired. Then he climbed into the back of the van, leaving me half asleep, disoriented, and whining "But where are we?" in the middle of a snow/sleet storm.

Well we were somewhere near Breezewood, but all I could do was drive out of the parking lot he had stopped in (after I tried to clear the snow/sleet off the windows) and keep driving until I saw enough road signs that I could guess where I was and figure out how to get home. There wasn't much visibility with the precipitation, and it was almost dark when we left Pennsic, so it wasn't really easy. 

So, this is the one day of Pennsic where I can feel smug because I don't have to drag an entire encampment home in a six or seven hour trip. Especially when I look out the window at what the weather's doing. It's not overcast. Overcast is bright and cheerful compared to the day outside my window. It's raining, and it looks like it's going to develop into a storm any time, now.

Ooooh! Lightening! Yep, a storm for sure.

Well, so much for my plans to go to the grocery store.

But the Ravelympics is really just getting under way.

The wimple is up to a point where all the shoulder decreasing is done. I have pulled the needle tips off the Options needles in the wimple, and put stoppers on the cable. I'm going to have to go somewhere on the bus sometime this week, and it'll be a good project to take with me for the half hour ride (each way) to anywhere nearby.

In the meantime, I've picked up stitches around the bottom of the hood, and I'm knitting a band around it which will eventually have a button at one end and (when I get to the other end) will have a button loop knit into it.

Here is the hood with the stitches picked up.

This is something I should've swatched for, but couldn't really without reknitting the whole hood, which isn't something I was willing to do. 

So, I've ripped out the band twice, and I'm about to have a third try at it.

If I get too frustrated, I may go back to the wimple for a bit.

There are going to be two ribs from a 2x2 rib running around the bottom of the hood, and one rib is going to circle back and continue into the other rib at the end, making a buttonloop.

I bought some really beautiful buttons, but I've lost some of them since then. I have found some more on the internet, and I plan to buy them, but it's possible that when the Ravelympics deadline arrives, the buttons may not have. So, the sweater may not have all it's buttons at the end.

You can see the buttons here.

All the buttons down the front will be the same size, but I think the one that's going to be right at my neck may do better with one of the slightly smaller ones I bought at the same time. I'm glad I thought to buy some smaller ones. And I'm glad I was able to find them on the internet. They look so pretty with the yarn! 

I'm starting to love everything about this sweater!

Tomorrow and Tuesday, around 5 or 6 in the afternoon/evening, there will be the two-part episode of Stargate SG-1 called Mobius on the SciFi Channel. It's very good. And if you look at the schedule, you may notice that Charlie Jade is on every Monday night (actually, Tuesday morning).

The Sarah Connor Chronicles is back in reruns on Monday night, too!

I need to get back to another stab at the band around the bottom of the hood, so wish me luck!

Have a great evening!

Pennsic, Ravelympics and Bureaucracy

I can tell this post is going to have a lot in it already, but it can't be too long because I have Ravelympics knitting to do.

Before we even get into the main part of this post, John finally put up some information about Steve Canyon at Comic Con! Click the link, or check the link in the sidebar for all the information! 

The first episode of Primeval will be airing on BBC in America tonight. Check schedules. Somebody on Ravelry was talking about it, and they liked it. I haven't had the opportunity to see it yet, but pass on the info in case you're interested.

Pennsic

Today is the last day of Pennsic. Yes, I know that tomorrow is officially the  last day, but there's just enough time tomorrow to get your stuff shoved into your vehicle and escape before you have to be off the site.

So, today is the day that you hunt down friends to say goodbye, check out the merchants to see if they still have those beautiful buttons/trim/knife/etc. It's a time for finishing up and making sure that you do all the things that you wanted to do at Pennsic. It's an intensely happy time while still being just the tiniest bit sad that it's over.

I'm still reading Murder at the War, which means my personal Pennsic experience will continue for a little while.

Ravelympics!

The Bejing Olympics opening ceremonies started last night at 8 pm their time. I live exactly 12 hours ahead of them, so it started at 8 am here, even though the ceremonies weren't broadcast here until 8 pm.

I woke up at almost exactly 8 am, so I lost no time in casting on the wimple for Team Hogwarts and Team Hopelessly Overcommitted. I had a lot of things to do yesterday, and wanted an easy project where I wouldn't lose my place, and was small enough to drag around in my knitting bag all day, and the wimple was perfect for that.

This is the wimple at this point. The bottom border is done. The bottom border alone is about 1/4 of the project, so this is off to a good start. This is the result of knitting on the bus, and a little knitting last night. I was too tired when I got home to do any knitting on anything that required thought.

I watched some TV programs and switched to the Olympic opening ceremonies during commercials. I had planned to watch more of it, but every time the president blinked, the news people had to cover it, and they missed a lot of the ceremonies and drove me crazy.

Bureaucracy

I did a lot of riding on busses yesterday and a lot of walking and accomplished nothing!

I had talked to someone at Social Security that suggested that a little more information might get me more money on a monthly basis. The people that saw me in person at the office said (basically) "In your dreams!"

So, I bopped on down to Comcast, and, once again, they treated me as though I had just arrived from Mars. Obviously, all their other customers are masochists! So, showing up in person was obviously a waste of time.

Etc.

I got up this morning, in pain everywhere from all the walking. The Aleve is starting to kick in, so I'm feeling better now than I was earlier.

Holly and I went out this morning. I had a coupon good for $15 of merchandise there. I found a really neat little clip-on light in blue with stars on it for about $10, and also bought a copy of Knitters Magazine. It cost a total of $.99! Knitters has several shawl patterns that I love in it, plus one shawl in a star shape! I've seen several star shaped shawls/afghans/blankets, but this is the first knitted one I've seen.

As you can tell, stars are my favorites.

So, I got some really neat stuff!

Holly gave me my birthday present early. $50!

I plan to use it to live on for the nearly two weeks coming up, and then get it together as if to pay her back and buy my real birthday present from her then. I expect to add $10 to it and buy a set of Options needles from Knit Picks.

I need to go, now. I need to do some knitting on the Celtic Sweater for the Ravelympics.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday at Pennsic

First of all, I have to thank Crandall, who sent me this link so that I (and you) can read the Pennisc newspaper. I haven't read it all yet, but the parts that I have read are great! He also sent me to the following quiz...

Your result for The hardcore SCA Test...

The Lord or Lady

You scored 42% hardcore SCA!

You really enjoy the SCA and like to go to events when you can. However it doesn't take over you life or anything. You've probably got an AOA or will have one soon. Sometimes folks wonder where you've been when you make it back to a meeting or event.

Take The hardcore SCA Test at HelloQuizzy

We now return you to your interrupted Pennsic information.

After finishing my post last evening, I suddenly realized that I forgot to tell you about the meteor shower! How could I possibly have left that out?

You can find info about the Perseids meteor shower here. Of course, the shower happens everywhere, but being up in the mountains and away from major cities makes it so much more impressive. If you wake up at night and wander to the portacastle, you can stand out in the middle of the road, look up at the sky and see the meteor shower. It's always been a part of Pennsic for me. A part I love.

By the way, this has nothing to do with Pennsic, but while we're on the subject of things in the sky, there will be an eclipse of the moon on the sixteenth of August (my birthday!). The total eclipse will be visible in the North (pretty far north) with other areas seeing only a partial eclipse. What a great birthday present! Thanks, universe! There's a countdown to the eclipse (and my birthday) at the bottom of the blog.

So, on Tuesday, you're probably recovering from the previous night. Wednesday night is "Moonlight Madness" at Pennsic. All the merchants stay open until midnight, and most goods are on sale.

The wares are staggering! You can buy almost anything at Pennsic that you could buy during the middle ages. I bought a bead whorl spindle there with an amethyst whorl. For under $10! It's a work of art.

You can expect to find places selling jewelry, especially penannulars, circlets, coronets, and even crowns. My friend, Brock (the Magik Badger blacksmith) is usually there selling and making his wares. The thing he made that amazed me most (and that I was really brokenhearted that I could not afford) was a small forgewelded knife. Some people call forgewelded goods "Damascus" steel. This particular one didn't have the traditional wavy patterns in it. It had shiny stars against a dark background. I fell in love with it.

You'll find people selling garb, feast gear, miscellaneous period camping gear, shoes, boots, leather goods, scribners' supplies, handwoven goods, and lots more.

Another thing that I couldn't afford at Pennsic and have been looking for ever since was a pocket watch. This was a very special pocket watch. When you flip the top open, there was a scale model of Stonehenge underneath. If you flipped that up, there was an actual watch below.

I take that back. I looked on the internet and found this! It's not the one I saw a Pennsic, but it's pretty neat!

Then, later on Thursday, you'll want to take a nap so you'll be fresh for the party to end all parties at Chez D'Argent. This usually involves flaming and other drinks (Baron Silver invented the flaming dragon, and at least one other flaming drink in addition to my favorite, the Irish Fog), bagpipers, kings of several kingdoms, bards and drums! A mere blog cannot begin to do it justice, so I won't even try.

Then there are the things people do.

During my first Pennsic, two of my camp-mates, Lavender and Aurora, got bored. How you could possibly be bored at Pennsic is beyond me, but they claimed that they did.

So, they went over to camp security and volunteered.

The overworked people at security weren't too careful about looking at their motives. They gave them a golf cart and a little authority and sent them off.

So Lavender and Aurora proceeded to stage a mobile "kilt check" on the theory that you could never be sure what those guys might be smuggling under there. 

Eventually, security caught on, and that was the end of their fun, but not before they'd had several amusing adventures. They left one Count, who had been waiting in line, shouting at a Portacastle "Your Grace! Your Grace! You should have been out here a moment ago in a kilt!"

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Switching gears in my train of thought...

I was about to swing into action, run out and catch the bus this morning, and then I thought to check the weather forecast. They said there would be thunderstorms this afternoon, but none tomorrow. So, I went back to sleep and plan to go tomorrow.

If I understand it correctly, sign-ups for the Ravelympics are over, buy you can still watch the fun if you didn't join. The board to watch will be the Finished Objects board.

Oddly enough, there is a list of projects signed up for competition that lists many projects that are already finished according to their creators. I think that something or someone is a little confused.

I've been dreaming about the Celtic sweater, and have even been doing a little swatching. I've decided that the bottom edge of the hood that I've already knit is a little bigger than I want the neckline to be. I had originally intended to make the cables that will go down the front overlap, but after thinking about it, I now think it would look better if the fronts butted together and the two cables ran parallel to each other. So that means that the hood is now too big around the bottom.

I'm going to put a band around the bottom of the hood that will extend into a loop for a button, and will also extend into the cable on the shoulder. I've started a swatch for this. It's not finished, but I have refined the buttonloops already. 

The I-cord that I did on the other swatch is thicker and bulkier than I really liked. I found that if I continue the two-stitch cable segment as three stitches in stockinet stitch, it looks good, not thinner, like the I-cord does. The edges turn under and it looks finished. 

If I do short rows on the loop, I can make it assume a nice buttonloop shape without all the extra bulk, and it looks much better and will button more nicely. I'm about to start the shoulder part of the swatch.

I'm also reevaluating the cable around the armhole idea. The more I think about it, the more I think I want to do something else.

On TV tonight, we have a rerun of Supernatural, and a brand new Burn Notice!

Don't forget the Doctor Who marathon on SciFi during the daytime tomorrow, too! And in the evening, there's a brand new Psych on USA.

And have a great Thursday!

Quiet Tuesday

Tru Calling is on the SciFi daytime rotation today! This would have worked better if I had told you about it before it happened, but I completely forgot.

I also almost forgot that Eureka is on this evening. There will be three solid hours of it: one rerun episode from last season, the episode from last week, and the all-new, never-been-shown-before episode, which, this evening, is What about Bob? What a wonderful addition to Tuesday evening!

On Friday, the SciFi Channel will be showing Doctor Who on it's daytime rotation. Especially not-to-be-missed, are Tooth and Claw (which shows the beginning of Torchwood), and School Reunion (where Sarah Jane comes back). For all you people who are getting psyched up for the Olympics or Ravelympics, don't miss the episode entitled Fear Her! It involves the 2012 Olympics.

Well, I found out why I can't get closed captioning on channel 50 (ABC Family) through Comcast. Part of what they were claiming was right, and part of it was wrong. And part of what I was telling them was right, and part was wrong.

With standard definition TV (NTSC in the US), the CC is imbedded in the information for the picture. If the CC is imbedded at the network level, if you have a TV that gets CC and it's turned on, it has to appear if you're getting a picture at all. That's what they were trying to tell me, and they were right about it. It's something that should be absolutely foolproof, no matter what. But they found a way to mess it up anyway.

High definition TV (ATSC), is so compressed to get a HD picture up there at all that they don't have room to embed CC into the picture. So it goes along with the sound. It can be displayed by any HDTV, but a standard TV hasn't got a clue and can't display it.

Comcast is broadcasting ABC Family on two channels. Channel 50 is supposed to have the SD signal, and 245 is supposed to have the HD signal. Can you see where this is going?

Right! They have the HD and SD channels switched! I was tuning in to 50 to get the SD signal and CC, but was getting the HD signal (which displays, but at SD), which doesn't have the CC embedded in the picture, and can't be displayed on my TV.

I called them today, and hopefully it will be fixed soon for all those people out there who haven't done a computer search on CC.

But I figured it out in time to see the last half of Middleman with CC, and then set the DVR to record the whole thing! It's wonderful! They throw in so many in-jokes for SF fans! At one point, Wendy and the Middleman are using code names over their radios, and one of them is "Gatekeeper" and the other is "Keymaster." Needless to say, the episode is about ghosts! It's a new favorite program for me. If you missed it, by the way, it'll be on later in the week a couple of times. Check your TV guides.

I'm still looking at cables for the shoulder of my Celtic sweater, and I should be swatching soon. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get the cable to start and how to turn the knitting so that half of the cable goes down the front and half goes down the back, and then I realized that I don't have to turn it. All I have to do is run the cable elements off the edge as I did on the hood, and will do on the buttonloops. Then just stop knitting and put the end on a stitch holder.

I need a cable with four individual strands for the shoulder, and then it needs to separate and two strands will go down the front, and two down the back. I'll add a short bit of I-cord that will go directly across the shoulder and be picked up at the edge in front and back. I could even weave it through the shoulder cable. This is going to be neat!

I'm going to put up a page within the next few days for the Celtic sweater. It will be just the beginning information right now, and I will add to it as I design it. So you can see the design process, too. Watch for the link to it in the sidebar within the next few days.

I will also be putting up a tiny ad for Designs Toscano in the sidebar. I love that company! I got some of their small gargoyles as a Christmas present one year, and I love them!

Have a great day!

***********************

Addition:

I have some early information about the Celtic sweater up. You can get to it by using the link in the sidebar.

I still need to make charts for the parts that are already done, and get them into the right places, not to mention the parts that I will be swatching and charting for the Ravelympics before it starts.

Be patient.

Gargoyles!

I got a catalog in the mail on Friday from Designs Toscano!

Any of you Medieval fans out there will probably know about this, but if there's anyone out there that doesn't, they are really big on gargoyles not to mention a lot of other fun stuff.

So, I've been having fun going through the catalog.

If I ever get some money, there are a few things I'd love to order from it! Going through their catalog is almost as much fun as going to the RenFair. For you Doctor Who fans, they have weeping angels!

I'm going to put a button in the sidebar for anyone who's interested.

I planned to go and do some things today, but by the time I was ready to go out, I checked the bus schedules and discovered that the trip was so long and time consuming that I'd arrive right before they closed (if I was lucky). So I've put it off until Thursday, when they are not forecasting thunderstorms.

Some of the people at the Ravelympics have let me know that my project for WIP Wrestling cannot be entered for any other event, although it can still be listed under Team TARDIS, Team Hopelessly Overextended, and Team Middle Earth. So, I have made the appropriate adjustments.

That's about all that is happening at the moment.

Have a great day!

Quiet Day

There's not much going on at the moment.

I'm still working on getting charts for cables put together for computer/internet use, without much success so far.

I'm still fighting with Comcast about many things, although I have concentrated my battle with them on just getting closed captioning on channel 50 for today. 

I finally got in touch with someone at the local Comcast office who tried channel 50 and agreed that there is no CC signal going out with the picture and sound on that channel. She did talk with the techs, who keep insisting that ABC Family is not broadcasting it to them. They did send out some kind of information for the main office to check it out with the network and try to get it turned on.

Before that, I "talked" to someone over Comcast's chat system who assured me that none of the CC that my TV displays is sent through the cable along with the picture and sound. I guess she thinks it just magically appears.

While waiting for the Ravelympics to start, I have been knitting a shawl in Caron's Simply Soft in navy, mainly because I had most of what I need for it in my stash. It's getting to big to fit on the Options size 8 needles with the 24 inch cable, and I'm going to have to transfer it to other needles. I'll be glad when the money situation eases up and I can get the entire set instead of just one set of #8 tips and one set (2) of 24 inch cables for them. I haven't tried the wooden ones, but have fallen in love with the nickel plated ones!

Tomorrow in late afternoon/early evening (here), the SciFi Channel will be showing a movie called A Sound of Thunder, which involves time travel and is based on a story by Ray Bradbury. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds like it could be good. I looked it up on Amazon, and it has very mixed reviews.

The BBC in America will be showing a Doctor Who marathon tomorrow, starting at 1 pm here. Among those episodes being shown will be Blink, probably my all-time favorite, and one that works without the Doctor Who background. This is definitely worth watching!

Quick Post!

I have lots to do today, so not much time for posting, so this will be short.

Do NOT forget about the second half of the season finale for Doctor Who this evening on SciFi!

There will also be an especially good episode of Stargate SG-1 (It's Good to Be King) on a bit before as well as Joan of Arcadia.

Dragon Sword is on sometime this weekend, too, followed by Dragonheart, both great stories for children as well as adults.

I'll be fighting with my computer later this evening or tomorrow in order to make some knitting charts for one of my Ravelympics projects.

In the meantime, I need to get out of here and on the bus!

Have a great Friday and weekend!

More Ravelympics

You are going to be tired of this even before it starts!

So, I have signed up to make three projects: the Celtic sweater, a wimple and a poncho.

The Celtic sweater's event is WIP Wrestling, and I'm doing it for Team TARDIS, Team Hopelessly Overcommitted and Team Middle Earth.

The wimple's event is the Cowl Jump, and it's for Team Hogwarts and Team Hopelessly Overcommitted.

The poncho's event is the Shawl Relay, and is for Team Browncoat and Team Hopelessly Overcommitted.

I'm not joining any more teams or committing to knit any more projects in any more events.

That's what I said earlier today, and wound up joining Team Middle Earth because I just couldn't resist!

I've been having trouble all day getting to post on Blogger. I finally have it straightened out, but I really need to go out and do some errands, so this will be a short post.

The SciFi Channel is going Dragon Crazy this weekend. They'll be showing Dragon Sword again, so here's your chance to watch it if you missed it not long ago.

Tomorrow evening, the very last episode of Doctor Who of the season will be shown. If you saw last week's episode, you'll be on the edge of your seat as the Doctor regenerates!

I don't have time to add links to all of this.

Gotta run!

Have a great Thursday evening!

Ravelympics News!

Well, the discussion boards are burning up at Ravelry about the Ravelympics.

Everybody has questions or is happy to meet everyone else, and the Harry Potter fans are already starting a new House Cup KAL for the beginning of September in order to coincide with the beginning of the Hogwarts school year. 

We're still discussing both the start and end date. The general consensus is that it should start on the first of September, but there's no decision on the end date. Halloween was an important date in the books, but I was just thinking that it might be good to use the opening of Half Blood Prince (the movie) for a deadline.

So, anyway, I lost my mind over the Ravelympics. I had already joined Team TARDIS in the WIP Wrestling, but I just couldn't resist also joining Team Browncoat for the Shawl Relay. And once I had done that, how could I possibly leave Team Hogwarts out? So, I signed up with them for the Cowl Jump for which I will knit a wimple.

While trying to recover from the shock of all that, I came across Team Hopelessly Overextended, and (since you can knit a project or enter an event for more than one team) signed up all my projects with them, too.

That was all yesterday. Overnight, the thought struck me that all the projects are things for which I wrote (or am writing) the patterns. When I came across the Designers Discus event, I signed up all the projects for that, too.

If you have been able to follow all this (if I explained it well enough), you will note that although I signed up for a total of three projects, the things I signed up for after that did not increase the number of projects I'm knitting, so there are still only three.

I'm not totally crazy!

Change of topic.

On the TV front, Comcast is continuing to be a colossal disappointment. They keep messing things up for their viewers and their "customer service" is a group of people who function to make sure that they don't actually have to fix anything, they just deal with keeping the customers from bothering the repair people.

I know I've been talking about it, but I'm stepping up my search for a replacement for Comcast.

They said that they would have someone in authority, someone who could actually do something about the problems call me up today after 2 pm. It's about 6:30, and I'm still waiting.

Have a good evening!

More Ravelympics and KAL!

I need to put together the chart for the rune bag and get back to knitting it. That's my project for today.

For the Ravelympics, I need to make some decisions real soon now. I'm thinking of making as many as two more projects for the Ravelympics.

I love that I joined Team TARDIS, and I really need to get going again on the Celtic sweater, but at the same time, I want to join Team Browncoat and Team Hogwarts!

I have yarn for a poncho, which might work for the shawl relay, but I'm not sure. I mean, it's not called the shawl relay. It would work well for Team Browncoat. The big advantage of this is that I already have yarn to do it with.

I'm also thinking that the cowl jump might be a good project for Team Hogwarts, and this would be a good, short project, but the problem with that is that I don't have yarn to do it in, or the money to buy yarn with.

Well, I take that back. I do have a batch of yarn in a faded denim color that's really pretty. I guess I could do it in that.

Now the problem is, how crazy do I want to make myself over this?

The big push is going to be on the Celtic sweater.

Do I really want to take on some more knitting?

Opinions! I need opinions!

I hope you're enjoying Eureka on SciFi today!

The Tour de Fleece Is Over!

Yesterday was the last day for the Tour de Fleece, and I finished!

In return for that, I got the spiffy little badge in the sidebar. 

You can see the beautiful yarn I produced in the previous post.

So, now that that's over what next?

Well, I'll tell you. There's a Harry Potter KAL/CAL on Ravelry that I've been meaning to join, but I keep knitting other things. You may not be able to see the page if you're not a Ravelry member.

Anyway, things are supposed to be finished by Harry's birthday, the 31st of July. That gives me until Thursday to make a project and finish it. I'm thinking about competing in the "A bag for all things" category. This will give me a chance to finish my rune bag. You know, the one that I expected to have done around the beginning of June. Yes, that one.

I've started it, but it's my own design, and I made charts for the runes, but I used square graph paper, and the knitted runes look all squashed and short.

So, I'm going to have to make new charts that will actually look OK. And then knit it. Or finish knitting it.

So, assuming that I finish that, that will give me a chance to knit some more bags before the real event begins!

The Ravelympics is about to start! Once again, if you're not a member of Ravelry, you probably won't be able to see this page. If you do fiberarts, you really need to think about joining Ravelry. It's just too much fun!

I have already signed up to compete in the WIP Wrestling for Team TARDIS. This doesn't start until the eighth of August (during the opening ceremonies), but if you are going to compete, you have to sign up now. If you are a Doctor Who fan, you really want to click the Team TARDIS link. It is just s0 funny!

The WIP I'll be wrestling with is the off white tweed Celtic sweater that I started months ago, and stalled out after knitting the hood. You can see a photo of the hood that I'm using as my profile picture, but I'll include it here.

I need to do an EZ type percentage system for picking up stitches at the base of a hood to continue with the body. So far, I haven't figured it out. But I did have a dream about it. That's where I decided I need a percentage system. I just haven't figured it out yet.

But I'll be starting a page for the Celtic Sweater with the directions. This will be a WIP itself until I finish the actual sweater, and possibly a bit after that until I get it all up there. Once I start it, I'll put a link to it in the sidebar, and I'll try to note that it's a WIP until I finish the sweater and the instructions.

For fans of the blue coat that I knitted for the knitting olympics, this will walk you though the same design process that I used on the coat.

For science fiction fans, tomorrow is a big day, at least if you like Eureka. Tomorrow seems to be Eureka day on the SciFi Channel. They will be showing reruns during the daytime rotation, followed by the season premier later. There's a lot to look forward to!

The big news for tonight on TV for SF fans is the Middleman.

My problem with this is that Comcast still hasn't fixed ABC Family so that the closed captioning works.

On the Comcast front, the repairman showed up today in the time slot he was supposed to show up in on Saturday. Well, the saying is "better late than never."

I let me know that the problem with the sound on 35 (which had grown and spread to 45 and 47 by then) could be fixed by turning on SAP.

Acording to Wikipedia, "Second[ary] audio program[ming] (SAP) is an auxiliary audio channel for analog television that can be broadcast or transmitted both over the air and by cable TV. It is often used for an alternate language..."

I guess I'm just so dumb that it never occurred to me that any cable or satellite company would possibly be obtuse enough to require having SAP enabled just to be able to hear a program.

The repairman also didn't fix the problem with closed captioning. He said that it's the network that's not broadcasting it. I pointed out that the network was broadcasting it to DirecTV, and asked why it wasn't broadcasting it to Comcast. He said he'd put in a work notice at the office and get them to check it and call me back either later today or tomorrow.

Why should I have to pay full price if they're not offering full service? I'm really unhappy with them.

I hope to be surprised by them and be able to read what's going on with Middleman this evening. Even if they don't get it turned on tonight, if they turn it on at all, I may still be able to catch tonight's episode later in the week. They run it several times over the course of the week.

I haven't gotten a chance to talk to John about yesterday and the panel at Comic Con yet. I suspect that he's busy putting up a new post at his Steve Canyon blog about it. His computer is online, but that doesn't prove that he's sitting in front of it and is actually present.

More info when it happens!

In the meantime, join the Ravelympics! And expect to see some really neat Ravelympics buttons in the sidebar soon.

And have a great Monday!