Comic Con Just Keeps Rolling!

What an exciting weekend! 

Comic Con is running all this weekend, and the Tour de Fleece is finishing up. 

By Monday morning, it will all be over.

Check the listings for G4 this weekend. They don't seem to be covering Comic Con on Sunday, which is a shame, especially for Steve Canyon fans, because that's when all the news about the new DVDs will be coming out. I don't have the details yet, so I'd love to be there and get to see the panel John will be on.

Speaking of the schedule on G4 today and this weekend, there is still day 2 of Comic Con today and day 3 tomorrow, as well as a Heroes marathon on Saturday!

I really should have started at the beginning with what's happening today, but Comic Con is so exciting!

Today, the channel to watch is SciFi! They're in the middle of a Tru Calling Marathon at the moment, and this evening there will be a new Joan of Arcadia, followed by the first of the two-part finale of Doctor Who for the current season! Not to mention a new Stargate Atlantis.

A large group of people on Ravelry were raving about the trailer for the Doctor Who finale, and I hadn't seen it until this morning. There's a lot to rave about!

I watched it as a recording and slowed it down so I wouldn't miss anything. The characters I saw in it were Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen, Ianto (from Torchwood), Martha Jones, Rose Tyler, and, of course, Donna Noble and the Doctor. I suspect that last week's episode, Turn Left, is something that will help understand the grand finale. I can't wait!

And now for the second part of this weekend's excitement: The Tour de Fleece.

I've had some slow going on the spinning front, but have most of the singles done. Finishing the singles tonight and tomorrow and then plying on Sunday should get me to my goal with time to spare.

On the knitting front, I've actually blocked the Shetland lace shawl and the Christmas hood, but I plan to take photos outside, so they'll be taken either this evening or tomorrow and posted here ASAP. The shawl turned out particularly well. I just love my steamer! I hadn't blocked a lace shawl with the steamer before, and I have to say the blocking went off like a dream. knitted lace looks like a wad of tangled yarn before blocking, and then turns into the most beautiful, magical web!

John called last night to let me know that he was all right. He had some dental work done yesterday. He had a dental problem that he thought would make speaking on Sunday an ordeal, but the dentist fixed everything painlessly without having to give him novacaine or anything. He said it was the best dental experience he's ever had, and he's now willing and able to smile and talk without worrying about malfunctions.

I sounded off again about my current cable problems, and was particularly annoyed about not being able to hear The Middleman, which looks like a really fabulous show. He said I should tell you about it.

It's beyond description, but here goes: It's got a very comic book feel, and the general tone reminds me of Get Smart, with a lot of SF in-jokes and general fun. 

In the first episode, Wendy is working as a temp answering phones in an office with a big window behind her. Through the window you can see lots of technical equipment with many scientists rushing around. 

Then they start running frantically, there's an explosion, lots of smoke, and one of the lab-coated technicians gets slammed up against the window behind her and dragged away. In the meantime, Wendy is cheerfully and efficiently answering phones. 

An enormous monster gets slammed against the glass, and it starts to crack, and then suddenly breaks with explosive force, throwing her and the monster across her desk and onto the floor. Wendy says into her headset "Please hold." and then gets up to battle the monster, who has grabbed her around the waist and is trying to drag her off.

Comcast is not displaying closed captioning for this channel, though so I can see the pictures and catch part of the dialogue, but I know I'm missing a lot of it.

I called and complained to Comcast again last night, and they finally talked me into letting a repair person come out on Saturday for free. This is going to drive me crazy because he'll be here during the Heroes marathon, so I'll miss some of that, but maybe I can get him to report the problem to the office once he figures out that it's not the box or my TV. 

A TV that's delivering sound on every channel but one, and closed captioning on every channel but another one isn't malfunctioning. They're not broadcasting it.

Check out  The Middleman. The bits and pieces I can decipher are so much fun!

Have a great weekend!

Comic Con is Here!

Well, Comic Con is not here, but it's happening

John went last night. He said he thought it was supposed to be for people working at the con, but it seemed like everybody was there!

He also said that there's  a panel sometime today about Stargate SG-1 with Christopher Judge, Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, and more!

I wish I could go!

If I have John's schedule right, he won't be able to get back there until Sunday.

And thank, you John for your generous contribution to the dental fund.

Other than that, I have spent the day dealing with entropy, as I have for the past month.

The particular mess I've been trying to fix (mostly) today is ComCast Cable. They just keep creating tons of problems. I don't get what I've paid for, and they won't do anything to fix it.

In the past 24 hours, they've displayed a "weekly test" during prime time (they don't have to do it in prime time, but they'll probably do it again during prime time tonight), a weather warning that says to go to channel 21 for more information instead of channel 101, lack of closed captioning on ABC Family, and lack of sound on the USA Network (I won't be hearing Burn Notice tonight).

The problems with the weekly test have been going on all this year, the weather warnings have been that way for a year and a half (ever since I got ComCast Cable), and the closed captioning problems have been going on for more than a month. USA became silent just today.

ComCast insists the sound and closed captioning problems are the fault of the networks, even though they're broadcasting sound and closed captioning to every other TV provider.

So far today, after three complaints that brought no help from ComCast, I've also complained to USA, ABC Family, Saab (whose commercials are going out without sound) and the FCC. And then complained to ComCast again. And I plan to write down the names of all the advertisers whose commercials I can't hear during Burn Notice tonight and let them know about it, too.

ComCast wants to send out a repairman and charge me for it. My viewpoint is that I'm already paying for TV, why should I pay them because they don't just send out the signals like I'm paying them to do already?

I'm thinking about doing what one of the people at ComCast said to do on the phone: go over to their office and complain in person. Loudly. In front of other customers.

That usually works, but I have to take a bus to get to the bus that will take me to their office, and then do the whole thing in reverse to get home. It's about a four hour round trip. They're disgusting!

In fiberarts news, I spun some more last night on the bright blue merino for the Tour de Fleece, and blocked everything in the queue. The Shetland lace shawl is particularly nice. I didn't get around to taking photos before I became embroiled in the ComCast fiasco.

Fiberarts is my lifeline to sanity during all this chaos.

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

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Don't forget Tru Calling on the SciFi daytime rotation tomorrow!