Dragon Con 2011

Dragon Con was overall pretty good.

I missed pretty much every panel I meant to go to. I didn't bother to dress up- I sortof half had a costume going, but in the end I didn't finish it. I went to drum circle three of the four nights I was there. At one point, while I was hanging out with Jason and Lisa, William Shatner walked right past us and I was only about 20 feet away from him while he scurried from the freight elevator to his hotel room.

There were some things I meant to do there that never got done. Not the panel stuff, but people stuff. I'm guessing it's a moot point by now.

Things for another year: stay at a hotel that's actually at the con itself. We stayed at the Holiday Inn and I thought we had a pretty good rate for it, but my god the walk. Especially at two am. I called Dad one night while I was walking it and got my ear chewed off even though I was walking right past the police station right then. It wasn't that I didn't feel safe or anything- the area I was in was brightly lit and well trafficked. It's just it was a hell of a walk. Fifteen minutes to the con, fifteen back to the Holiday Inn, ect. It got old.

Gareth David-Lloyd was his usual awesome self. Jenn and I went to a commentary he did on Countrycide- which isn't one of my favorite episodes- but he was really funny while he was commenting. And he played to the crowd, which was anti-Gwen. (Some days I want to feel bad for the character, since everyone (everyone I know, at least) hates her. She started out so great and brave and not all helpless and I really liked her then and then she cheated on Rhys with Owen and then brainwashed Rhys and it's even worse if you read the Torchwood novels and arggg. And then most days I remember exactly why I hate her too) After the commentary thing we had like, twenty minutes to get to another hotel and up some stairs and into line if we wanted to meet Gareth and as soon as Jenn and I went outside it was pouring. We did get over to the autograph place in time and rather than get an autograph I just told him that I remembered how nice he was the con before and how great he was in Torchwood and tried not to talk really, really fast or shout at him.

He laughed and said he's a jerk now and to go away. And then he let Jenn and I get our picture with him.



We all look goofy as shit, but whatever.

In other news, I'm almost done messing about with my Halloween party invites. Finding a calligraphy font that is readable under 18pts is a nightmare. They're either so freaking bland and everyone uses them, or you need to be the person who wrote whatever it is because you can't read it without already knowing the words. Siiiiiiigh.

ALSO I HAVE ORDERED SO MANY BOOKS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES PASTICHES I COULD BUILD LIKE A LITTLE COUCH CUSHION HOUSE OUT OF THEM. AND THEN GO LIVE IN IT UNTIL THE NEW BBC SHERLOCK OR THE NEW RDJ MOVIE. EITHER OR.

London Dreams

The day before yesterday I dreamed I was in the West End- I have this friend here who always wants to travel and for some reason I dreamed she and I had gone there- we were wandering around the West End (which looked less like itself and more like a futuristic shopping mall) and I ran into another friend of mine. We all decided to get dinner and then after that to walk to Oxford Circus to Beard Papa and get cream puffs.

Somewhere on the way I noticed things weren't right- there was supposed to be a bookstore somewhere and it wasn't there and that jarred me out of the dream before we'd made it anywhere near Oxford Circus.

I spent two and a half months living in Italy and I've never dreamed about it. I spent six weeks in England- mostly in London- and I almost can't believe how much I miss it. I miss the Tube. I miss my Oyster Card. A few weeks ago there was some site doing a bookstore review and the place was somewhere in Soho and I kept thinking I must have walked past the store at some point and never noticed it. I keep thinking the Chinese food I had in Brighton was the best I've ever had- even though I know it's a lie.

Ugh.

I picked up Andrew Grant's Even the other day- it's this pretty badass spy novel- that I first found out about on the Tube. They do these massive posters on the walls there about this week's book and David Trevalyon- the spy in the book- gets his life stolen and he's going to get... Even. Pretty Jason Bourne-ish. Turns out there's a sequel out now for it. Picked it up for my Kindle.

And back to the morose stuff. I saw this guy at work the other day- just one of the customers milling about- a doppleganger for Andy. It took my breath away. To some extent things like that make me angry. That there's only so many bone structures or hair and eye combinations amongst all of us. Other times I see something like that and, I mean, of course it's not him reincarnated- the time is all wrong for that, this guy was like, 20 or something- but it's spooky. It made me think of all the things we don't wind up doing or saying. I used to work at this pizza parlor and we'd get free pizzas all the time and I used to take them over to his apartment. I always thought how uncool it would be to tell him how much it meant that he let me in and I never said anything. I kept meaning to make him a pair of gloves and never settled on a pattern and every time I start to think about having cold hands in the winter and making myself just one more pair I remember I never made him any.

This is easily my favorite ad on tv

Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf

I went and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 Thursday night and it was great- there was a preview for Sherlock 2 that looked like a lot of fun (technically I'm still more excited about Sherlock season 2 on BBC, but whatever). RDJ looked horrific in drag. Jude Law had an amazing scarf- blue and brown and cream colored.



Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf

I'm using Vanna's Choice yarn from JoAnn's. It's worsted weight. I'm having to guess at the amount but I bought:

3 skeins Colonial Blue
3 skeins Chocolate
1 skein .....that oatmeal colored yarn with the brown threads in it. I lost the ball band already :(

CO 40 stitches. I did it long tail, but whatever you like.

Oh, right, size 9 needles.

CO 40 stitches in chocolate, then knit, purl, knit, purl all the way across. next row knit the knits, and purl the purls. The scarf will shrink in width but be thicker.

This brown section, make it 16 rows. Then start with the oatmeal color and do 2 rows. Then start up the colonial blue and do that 10 rows. Then the oatmeal again for 2, then go back to the chocolate. Make it as long as you need to and be sure to end with a brown section.

Now that you're done knitting it and ready to go solve some mysteries get out your trusty copy of... (i was going to say Half Blood Prince, but...) Sherlock Holmes Collected. (if you don't have that in some massive edition, go buy one. but until you've got it, use your massive Harry Potter books) Watson's scarf has really big tassels and I've only got one decent-ish picture of them so I have to guess a bit how they're done. Wrap the yarn around the book- all three colors- and cut it when you think you have enough. In the pic I've got that shows the tail of the scarf, it looks like you take two strands of a color together, use a crochet hook to pull them through, then slip the ends through the loop of yarn you pulled through. Pull it tight. That's one tassel. If I squint really hard it looks like the order of colors of tassel are oatmeal, chocolate, then colonial blue. Repeat it across.



It looks like it hits Jude Law at the knee so make it pretty big.

(also, Charles, I saw an ad for Disney's John Carter of Mars, and at the bookstore there was what looked like a movie tie in novel for Solomon Kane, and there's Conan at the end of the year. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?)

Camp Nanowrimo and crochet armor

Nanowrimo has started a new event that can take place any time of the year. It's called Camp Nanowrimo and it's got a kid's camp sort of theme to it. It's still got all the tracking features, but there's no forums or regions or anything for an ML to do (thank god, honestly- the last two years as ML have been hard).

There's a link to the side if you're interested in looking at it.

I have no idea why but even though my DVR is set to only record new episodes of Ancient Aliens it records ones that are old. But only sometimes. So sometimes I'll come home and there's a new episode, but it's really an old one. Oh well. Sometimes they get confused about actual history in it- I seem to recall some allusion to the crown of Egypt being designed to hide an alien's head- but there's things they bring up that there aren't answers to. Like how the Egyptians built anything when we can't find any of their tools. Or some of the South American monolithic sites that are just preposterously oversized...

I put down Sherlock to read Conan and then wandered off into the horrible sea of trash that is known as Anita Blake. It's so bad in such a... guilt pleasure way. (oh god i can't believe i made that joke) The early evening was so nice I went to sit on the porch and read The Case of the Dancing Men. I didn't quite finish it but the people are dead and Sherlock is hiding behind a door about to capture the main suspect. Sometimes when Sherlock is at his most didactic I just want Professor Snape to show up. Then they could have awesome smart people adventures.

I picked up some kind of spin off Conan novel this morning about a guy named... Anok? I can't wait for the movie to come out. And I keep waiting to get to the story about Sonja- I keep looking at knitting patterns for bikinis and thinking how to modify them with little crochet armor bits into her costume. It's like comics/crochet/fiction madness.

And I accidentally got mom addicted to True Blood. No, not the books. The tv show. "Can we watch it? Are the dvds here yet? What's going to happen to Sookie now?" I'm going straight to hell.

(Forced) Bachelorette

I'm not the kind of person that watches things like Bachelorette or Bachelor- it's just blah pukey fake relationship bs. I can't stand it.

But that doesn't stop Mom from loving it to death.

But this new season- the one episode that I've caught while making dinner- one of the guys on here is the most incredibly horrid person ever. His name is Bentley- he can fake cry on command, uses his daughter as an excuse to bail on the Bachelorette, and he keeps telling the cameramen he's only there to promote his buisness and get attention back home. Another girl told the Bachelorette what Bentley's MO was and she confronted him about it and he managed to spin the whole thing that it was his ex-wife's best friend telling lies...

I don't even understand guys. What was the point of all thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifat? The Bachelorette bawled for like ten minutes of what was on air and who knew what that was in real life time. And they kept cutting it with him talking to the cameramen about how annoying she was and how much he was "so over" her tears and how ugly she is.

IN MUCH BETTER NEWS I've been reading the Conan stories like crazy. I found a complete collection for my Kindle. And it's like every story some waifish Princess is throwing herself and her billowing irridescent veils into his arms. It's great.

And I've been looking for a pattern to make a Harry Potter sweater. I think I'm gonna go with the Incredible Custom-fit Raglan Sweater pattern.

Outlander and Sleuth

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Work and School have taken over all my spare time again. And I haven't cooked anything that fancy lately or knitted anything really spectacular (i mean, besides the shipwreck shawl from knitty that I'm in the middle of- I've just got to the beading part and it's making me crazy).

Just kind of blah and busy.

Anyway, now that it's the small little break between spring and summer semester I've been catching up on movies. MovieStop keeps having these four for three sales and I buy terrible movies- I bought some nightmare of a movie called Doomsday that's about a plague in the UK where the government decides to build a huge wall to block off Scotland and the plague. Oh god is it bad. It has a certain amount of punk rock Mad Max thing going on, but god is it horrid.

Outlander was a bit better- space man crashes in the viking times and the space monster he's got in his ship gets loose and then he's got to hunt it down. Honestly I felt bad for the Moorwin- the space monster, more than the vikings.

And now we're watching Sleuth, the remake with Michael Caine and Ewan McGregor. The dialog is so fast and sharp you can tell it was a stage play before it was ever a movie. So far nothing much has happened but I'm riveted.

I'm about half way through the complete Sherlock Holmes and I picked up a complete Conan because I've got one of the books and the new movie looks pretty. My Kindle is wrecking my life. New book, new book, new book.

GQMF

This cupcake is not messing around. Dark Chocolate Fudge cake batter + Creme de Menthe frosting. Tastes like excellence and diabetes.

Should have been Monday

For some reason I've decided I'd like to run a 5k. Or a marathon. Probably the 5k though since I've never really done any running in my life. The bad knees and the asthma are a strike against me getting it done but then again I'm never going to make it on the TARDIS if I can't run. And runners are always these slim, insanely fit people.

I've seen a bunch of "Couch to 5k" apps on my Ipod- it's basically a voice-over that coaches you while you listen to music, and you run then walk then run some more, over several weeks until you can run for half an hour straight. I gave in an bought one Sunday night and went running the first time on Monday and I didn't really expect to finish the run. Like I said I've never run before and I know what my problems will be if I do. Also since I don't run I don't have real running shoes- which was the problem I didn't think of before I went out.

Surprisingly I made it through half the run. Somewhere down at the bottom of my neighborhood in the middle of run four of eight my left ankle started aching, and then my lungs went crazy. It was like they all conspired to stop working at the same time and I had to sit on the curb for a few minutes before I could walk back home.

I planned to head out first thing this morning for a rematch but it's freaking raining. It would have to considering I actually went and bought running shoes (I'm certain that's what hurt my ankle Monday). Hopefully the weather will stop before I have to go to work...

The Last Supper was Straightedge

My classmate asked if "Jesus was lighting a smoke".

Sigh.

Meta Tv: Doing it right

A couple of years ago there was this fantastic summer murder mystery show called Harper's Island. Basically this serial killer had been to the island years before, killed a bunch of people, and some of the kids moved away after the serial killer was killed by the sheriff. They all come back years later for a wedding only each episode about three people die and you're trying to guess who the killer is.



This is Abby and Henry. Her mom got killed by the serial killer. Henry is the groom at the wedding.

Anyway MASSIVE SPOILERS Henry is one of the killers (there are at least two in canon but I think there was a third) and in the end Abby takes him out.

If you skipped the spoiler go rent the DVDs, it's excellent.

Last summer there was a new show called Covert Affairs.



This is Annie and Auggie. They do CIA stuff. She was backpacking across the pacific and fell in love with some guy and then they decided they were soulmates and then he ran away in the middle of the night. Two years later she's all badass and in training when her teacher gets the call they need someone who can speak Russian and pass as an escort so she's sent to Washington. Auggie is a blind soldier who now does tech ops stuff. He's the voice on the headset telling her which exit to take.

In my head Henry (oh look spoilers again) didn't die on the beach. Section One operatives came out of the water like Navy Seals and took him away for training. He learned how to do computer stuff from Berkoff, and how to fight from Michael, and Nikita made him stop being a sociopath just by being herself. And then Red Cell blinded him or a mission went wrong and now they're using him as a deep cover operative in the CIA.

Oh if only I had never discovered TV. If only.

MOAR SHERLOCK

So I had a dream this morning I was at the Trafalger Square Waterstones looking for Sherlock tie-in novels. I was like oh god... Amazon.uk says there aren't any so at least my bank account is sighing in relief.



No, no, I don't want this one because it's got a pretty cover. Nope.

BBC Sherlock vid

Probably helps if you've seen the show. God it's amazing.

Cute Song

Every time this comes on Capitol 95.8 I'm like yessss. The dance he does on the traffic stops reminds me of Edinburgh- the tour guide we had kept jumping up on those things, even after he started drinking.

It's funny the things I think of that I miss in Europe- mass transit is almost always number one. I still can't get over the fact that when I was in Montepulciano I could get the bus to Chiusi, then the train from there to Rome Termini, a bus from there to the airport, the plane from there to London, ride the tube... I was in Trader Joe's tonight and they had some wine from Montepulciano- it's weird to think that's the winery at the other end of town from where I lived. I miss the ice cream trucks all over London- practically the same as you see in the music video. I miss low tide on the Thames, when I'd climb down some algae infested steps to muck around in the clay and old bricks and mussel shells- one time I found a two pound coin and spent it on boiled candy ten minutes later at some place that makes it from scratch.

And we're back on air

Thanksgiving through January is the worst time to know someone in retail. I swear I drop off the face of the earth. No hangouts, no movie time (unless it's midnight or something), no phone calls unless I'm at the grocery store.

My family knows this and deals with it. What I feel bad about this year is my other family, the biological one, which I don't think does. I feel like a jerk- I haven't spoken to my sister in a month or so. I called my biological mother for the first time back in early November or October or (OMG I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT DAY D:) and I said I'd come down and visit and I haven't called her back.

And now it's January and work is finally slacking off and I'm getting things together for the new school year and realizing I really, really need to call and explain myself.

1. I did not like this snow business this year. It was cold and wet and it made the roads scary.

2. Next year I'm starting all the Christmas knitting in June.

3. Thank god I have a new novel to work on or I'd go bonkers.

Worst. Nanowrimo. Ever.

This year's Nanowrimo has been a disaster from start to finish. I couldn't think of anything to write til day one- too much school work- no time to plan events- the story I picked up ended halfway through. I started another story as soon as the first finished but by god there's only so many weekly papers and final papers and Livy a person can cope with before defeat happens.

Besides the not winning part- which I've done before, just not in years- the worst part is feeling like I can't write anymore. Nothing is as good as it used to be, I don't think of the story unless I'm sitting at the computer (no time to think up conversations while I'm at work or driving, apparently), everything just feels blah. I looked at last year's Nano which was a romance novel and I swear to god it's brilliant in comparison to anything I wrote recently but it's no For the Glory of Rome.

Sometimes I'm scared I cranked out my Penultimate Life's Work.

I hate feeling like this.

In other, happier, news:

I've talked to my sister about five or six times on the phone. She's really nice. She has two kids. She wants me to visit.

My seamonkeys are doing great.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson is even more awesome than the movie. I cannot put it down. Even though I know what's happening.

In comparison Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes is no Jurassic Park. I think he must have still been working on it when he died, like it's draft 1.5 or something. It's just not as long as usual.

My friend Lisa has a bunny that she let me petsit. I've never really seen a bunny up close besides in pet stores. They're not very friendly but they are soft. I guess you just hold it?

A 26 year wait, over.

A lot of you probably know I'm adopted. Since I was twenty I've been looking for my biological family- with no luck. I made a lot of phone calls and sent a few letters but it all amounted to was disconnected numbers. Thursday afternoon I tried googling again, trying some new numbers. The first one went to a disconnected line, the next rang and rang and then someone answered.

I asked for my biological mother and the she said she'd go look for her out in the yard. About two minutes later she was on the line.

It's still blowing my mind. I looked for them for six years and it was just as easy as calling the right number at the right time. I talked to my biological mother for an hour that day and a few hours later my sister called- I have a sister and three brothers- she lives in Hawaii and is in the Navy, two of the brothers live here, and another is in the Army. One of my brothers who lives here has called me a few times. I'm supposed to go down to see them soonish...

Right now it's so much. Every time the phone rings I jump up to grab it- who's calling now? Who's texting? Is it one of them?

Late

I used to know this guy named Andy Zebrowitz. He was one of those people that looked like trouble, but he was always a good friend to me. Not in the overly friendly, I'd do anything for you way, but in a quiet way where he'd do it anyway, while acting gruff. The best way I can describe it is like Dr. House. He was smart and cool and I didn't have a crush on him, just sort of hero worship. He was that guy that you knew that was so cool you'd tell people you knew him. That kind of thing.

He used to fix my computer for me sometimes, when I couldn't figure it out myself. And I used to bring him cookies and pizza (when I worked at a pizza place) and Thanksgiving Dinner leftovers... I never heard one way or the other if he had Thanksgiving plans but he never turned down the food and always gave the Tupperware back clean. One time I randomly asked him if he'd like to go to the Renaissance Festival and when I went to pick him up in the morning he'd gotten a new computer the night before and stayed up all night playing with it. I think he'd gone to bed about half an hour before I showed up and when he answered the door it was clear he'd forgotten about the whole thing. I felt like this goofy kid- like I was bothering him- but he just said he needed a shower and a cup of coffee and we could go.

Before I went to Italy I asked him if he wanted anything from over there. I don't think he ever got back to me, and I didn't pick anything up for him. I remember a winter or two ago I said I'd knit him some gloves and he sortof said what kind he'd like- fingerless, black, long cuffs- but I never did get around to making them. We didn't talk all that much.

And then before I knew it it was this summer and I was going to head to London and it struck me if I hadn't gotten him anything from Italy I could get him something from London and we could hang out at least once more. Something like that. And at the time I was thinking it I also thought it had been a while since I'd seen him online. And he's one of those people, like me, always on.

I checked IM and he wasn't on. I just sort of thought he might have shut it off or was doing something to his computer but when I checked his blog I saw his obituary. I thought it was a joke for about fifteen minutes- I had to do some googling to see what was going on- we mostly knew each other online and didn't have any mutual friends. He'd died a few days before my birthday, about five months earlier. It was like a gut punch. I know, sort of a bit much of a reaction to an internet friend dying who I hadn't seen in years- but- Andy was one of those people... Who make a difference for you even though they don't do much of anything. He was a decent guy when I didn't seem to know any of that variety.

Books, books, books.

I picked up Anne Macaffrey's Crystal Singer last week at Book Exchange. Normally I give books the 50 page test that I learned from Charles- the first fifty pages were just kind of... Sleepy isn't the right word, but I wasn't excited about anything Killashandra was up to either. But I couldn't stop reading it either. I think I'm about 3/4 the way through it and I don't want to read it anymore, but I do. I guess Killashandra isn't very interesting, but Anne's writing is very good.

Then I picked up Dracula, My Love by Syrie James which is a retelling of Dracula from Mina's POV. I'm only about a hundred pages in, but it's a good read. Not YOU HAVE TO READ THIS yet, but it's amusing.

And last night I noticed that Clive Barker's Absolute Midnight which is the third book in the Abarat series was supposed to be out last month. I think it was also supposed to be out last month last year. Come on Clive, put the book out- there's not even any fanfic I know of to bridge the gaps.

Why I Don't Like Apple

Ok, I have some good news about the whole iPod Touch thing. After about forty minutes on the phone with tech support- who I do have a warranty with, despite what the website says- and much troubleshooting and reinstalling we both admitted the iPod was probably bricked. Then Felix, the tech support guy, made me an appointment at the Lenox Apple Store so I could get it looked at, just in case.

I drove down to Lenox today and went to the jampacked Apple Store. Forty-five minutes after my appointment time I finally was called up to the bar to have my iPod looked at. The man at the counter implied it was my Windows computer that was the problem twice before he'd actually plug in my iPod and see how bricked it was. After about three minutes of it plugged into his MacBook he finally did a restore on it- thankfully it restored and now my laptop is updating it.

The part that got me was after he'd restored it he told me two more times that the iPod might not work with my computer, then asked if it was a laptop so maybe if it didn't work I could bring it up. I told him, yes, it was, and then he sneered.

"Well, I can't say I'll be happy to see your computer in my store, but, I think I can try to troubleshoot it."

I just stared at him.

I have worked in retail for about ten years now, and I hate going to people's managers and making a scene. I have had costumers I've done nothing to do it in hopes of free food or gift cards or whatever. I didn't go to his manager, I didn't even say anything to him, which I'm sort of regretting.

Yeah, you know what, I have a Windows Computer. And it works really, really well. I love it. And you know what, if you have an Apple and you feel the exact same way? Good for you! I'm not going to try and change your mind and talk to you like I'm a Superior Human Being.

Mike, at the Lenox Apple Store, you're not better than me, you're just rude.