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.

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.

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.

BBC Sherlock vid

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

Really really tired

This sums up everything I have ever learned about living with other people.

Yawn. Fighting jet lag by staying awake as long as possible is soul crushing. I woke up on the plane this morning at... 9AM brit time or something and ate this delicious cinnamon cake they gave me in my breakfast box. And I have been awake ever since and it is... 9PM brit time now and I feel like it's the longest day there has ever been. Midnight sun, six month days, kind of long.

The dorms we're in are nice. From the outside they look like brutalist architecture but it's more soviet looking than that. I'll take a pic tomorrow when it's not so drizzly outside. On the inside the dorms are yellow. And the windows open. Window. And I have a sink.

Earlier we went to a pub to see the england/algeria (?) match. There's nothing like standing in a mad crush of people who are all shouting at each other about work today then howling like werewolves when the ball gets close to the goal and realizing you have no idea how football/soccer is played.

Ok. Super tired. Bed now.

TOMORROW: SCAVENGER HUNT

SHIELD COIN COLLECTION: 1/7

Oh, I also forgot to mention the 50p of custard I bought at Tesco's. It was more custard than a Ben and Jerry's carton could hold. For 50p. So good.

Scapegoat

I'm not really into politics. In the sense I have no idea what is going on most days or what things mean. Some guy was on the tv the other night howling about the oil spill in the gulf and the anchor covering it was like "this DEMOCRAT says this about the oil spill.... even a DEMOCRAT feels this way..." and I had to ask why they were stressing the word 'democrat' like maybe they hate the environment or can't see oil or something.

Basically I don't get it.

Anyway. Not that I know anything about politics but I have noticed one thing that I don't really get. I know a lot of people don't like Obama because they think he's not an American or he's secretly Muslim or something- but there's moments where they're talking about the economy on tv and they get really angry he hasn't made more jobs yet.

Like he's the Cadbury Bunny and he lays jobs instead of Creme Eggs.

I don't know. Maybe presidents have powers like that, but I have no idea. I don't think they do.

What brought this to mind was the oil spill press conference thing this afternoon. It seems like everyone is like "you, president guy, why did you let the oil spill happen? how could you do this to us?!". Even when he was saying that we've never had an oil spill accident on this level and that people weren't prepared for it because we didn't know a spill could be this bad- people seemed to be blaming him for not being psychic. Or people are wanting to know why he hasn't stopped this yet, or hasn't cleaned up the gulf yet- and it's BP's fault and problem as far as I understand.

Don't know. Like I said, I don't get politics.

In other news, is anyone else completely freaking out about the Bones season finale? CAN'T. WAIT. FOR. FALL.