i have a space fleet

Bones plus House? AWESOME.

~~~

( spoilery )

~~~

I have awesome thoughts about BNL, but I'm still a little off kilter and will post them later. They are squeeful. And awesome. Awesomely.

See, there was a reason for Tinkerbell Jesus.

I cannot stop laughing.

I spent most of last night mainlining honorh's Who fic, and I've suddenly remembered why I don't read fic: because I like it, and then I lose track of time and end up staying awake until five in the morning reading it.

I've been avoiding reading fic even by people on my flist because I know I will get addicted and it will ruin my life because I have zero self-control when it comes to fic. Especially nicely packaged fic, which is only a few pages long, and it takes such a short time to read, so why not read another one, and oh, a chapter-fic, but it's only 15 chapters, and they're kind of short chapters, so it's just like reading a couple of short fics, right? No harm in that, why not read another? Oh, and that's an interesting premise, it's only one in the morning, I'll stop at two — oh, is it three already? Well, I'm not really tired, I'll just read this quick series of drabbles — what the hell, it's five? I have to get up tomorrow! I will go to sleep after I finish this one chapter, oh, these two chapters, well, maybe three because I have to know what happens next . . .

And then before I know it, it's daylight outside and I'm reading a paragraph for the third time because I'm so tired that I can't remember what I've just read — and I still just want to read one more chapter.

Maybe I need an intervention.

Alex, the African grey parrot made famous by Dr. Irene Pepperberg's groundbreaking research into language and cognition, has died.

AP: Brain bird dies after years of research.

The best thing about Firefox is that if you delete it and then have to reinstall it, it stores all the old settings and extensions so that you don't lose your settings for ABP, TabMixPlus, or your history.

Yes, I have just had to discover this marvelous feature for myself. I was prepared to be full of WOE, and now I am full of JOY.

The only bad thing is that the session manager doesn't seem to save more than two sessions back, which sucks because there was an internets problem and my last session, which had nine or ten tabs open, got overwritten, and then someone else opened Firefox and now that previous-to-last session is gone! I can only vaguely recall what the tabs were were. Now I have to sort through my history to find out, because they were things I left open so I could back to read them. WOE.

I had a prolonged and pernicious series of nightmares last night, bad enough that when I woke up at nine this morning, I had to lay still with the light on and the covers drawn up for two hours before I could stop freaking out enough to get out of bed. And the only reason I calmed down is because I had an epiphany about the one thing that could banish the demons: crackfic. And not just any crackfic, mind you, but one of the most cracktacular fics in the entire world, which I read several years ago and still ponder amusedly from time to time. And what is that fic?

A Russell/Holmes high school AU.

Yes. Yes. It was brilliant. It was so bad, I had to stop reading several times. It was so bad that, even after I stopped reading, I had to keep going back to read more. It was on ff.net, of course. And now I must read it again, or I will forever have nightmares about Sherwood Forest being inside a pharmaceutical factory with glass elevators and a serial killer outside, and the only way to escape the serial killer (who is quite a nice man, really, except that he wants to kill me and mummify my remains) will be to crawl up a wooden playground structure, which mysteriously has wooden gates with locks on and is actually a spaceship (the spaceship is also a wooden playground structure, which makes one wonder about aerospace engineers until one realises that it is a TARDIS — and somehow, this is all Russell T Davies fault).

Anyway. I didn't really want to slog through ff.net to find this fic, so I decided to google for it, and google brought me to this wonderful quote from Laurie R. King's official blog:

Q: Kay asks, Will we find out what happens to Russell/Holmes in the large gap of time between Monstrous and Letter of Mary? The other books follow one after another within less than a year span (excluding O, Jerusalem).

A: Probably not in detail, to the disappointment of Russell readers with prurient interests concerning The Wedding Night (Yeah, I’m talking about you—do you think I don’t know about the Russell fanfic?)

Oh, how I lol'd. Holmes fangirls are a bunch of pervs, let me tell you. King is entirely complicit — who but a pervy Holmes fancier would write a young girl married to the man? Not that I'm complaining, mind — I'm perfectly happy to live out my pervy Holmes fantasies through Russell — and anyone still in the fandom after "Locked Rooms" is either with me on this or hoping desperately that King is just overworked and will stop writing glowing Tinkerbell Jesus sentimental Holmes posthaste. Although after Doomsday MREG, I don't know why anyone should be expecting that . . .

ETA: Speaking of crackfic, fandom_wank is 100% responsible for all of my most traumatic fic experiences. Coincidence? Or is f_w, in fact, destroying fandom?

Query: Why is space dark?

Answer: NOT BECAUSE OF STEADY STATE COSMOLOGY LET ME TELL YOU.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.astro/browse_thread/thread/6b3ae6811b13ad6d?tvc=2&q=why+is+space+dark%3F&hl=en

TRUFAX.

(Okay, so it's not really wanky, per se. Yet. But it is amusing if you are interested in astronomy.)

Dear Flist,
What's that quote about fighting the king? It's Latin, and it goes something like, "he who draws his sword against the king must be prepared to use it". I don't remember; I have it written down somewhere cos it's awesome, but I can't find it on Google (probably because I've phrased it wrong). I saw it here as "When you aim at the King, you must kill him", but I'm pretty sure that's not right. HALP!
Love,
Me

Somehow, reading an old wank turned into investigations of the Mayan Calendar, serious googling of Unity08 and the Irregular Times, listening to Lime & Violet (a fairly schizo knitting podcast), downloading Harry Potter sock patterns, and browsing clips on MSNBC. And you know what?

Christ Matthews is a jerk. Not like Bill O'Reilly is a jerk, but still a jerk.

When I run for president, the basis of my platform is going to be the sharing ball*. Only the person with the sharing ball is allowed to talk. If you don't have the sharing ball, you have to shut the fuck up and listen until the person with the sharing ball is finished talking. And when the person with the sharing ball is finished, they have to pass it on. And people will have to raise their hands. College teaches people not to raise their hands. That's the biggest mistake ever, because everyone ends up yelling. Sharing ball, raising hands — and indoor voices! Why does no one understand indoor voices?

It's like these people failed kindergarten or something.

*Also, recess.

When did District Attorney Arthur Branch become a real person who was running for president? Like, of the United States, even. You know how fen laugh about "when fandoms collide"? It's like that, only with added brutal violation of the fourth wall and political sprinkles on top. Combined with the latest Doctor Who production schedules, I'm pretty sure reality as we know it is gearing up for a major catastrophe.

Personally, I would never vote for Arthur Branch for anything because Arthur Branch is a jackass. Adam Schiff, on the other hand, can tick my box any day.

And according to Wikipedia, Jack is getting promoted to DA. Which kind of sucks, because the DA does nothing except sit in a chair and hand out alcohol. IT'S ALL BRANCH'S FAULT. 2012. I BLAME HIM.

The egg-in-a-bottle trick is way less magical when it is revealed that the egg does not, in fact, have a shell.

No, I did not know that until like, five minutes ago. I've never actually seen it done, only read about the theory behind it. So I was always really impressed by the idea that pressure differentials could suck an egg into a bottle without the egg going SPLAT. It didn't make sense, but it was amazing. Now it makes sense, but is not so amazing.

I'm looking up elementary science experiments instead of reading the paper. But I read the abstract. Part of, anyway. Well, I say read. Skimmed. Same thing.

Will It Blend?, if you don't know, is a PR site for Blendtec, a blender manufacturer. The site is largely devoted to extreme blending of outrageous but ordinary things, like toilet plungers and toy cars. It speaks to the scientist in me, the deep, dark corner of my soul that wants to press the big red button just to see what will happen.

My favourite is the blending of the iPhone, followed closely by the blending of glow sticks, which is tied with the blending of Bic lighters. The blending of neodymium magnets was also pretty awesome.

My only complaint is that there aren't more explosions. The host talks about smoke, but it's not smoke, it's dust, and there's very little actual smoke. Come on! It's science! Science demands explosions!

Dear Nitpickers,

Purple is a colour. Purple and violet are the same thing. The distinction between purple as "a mix of red and blue light" and violet as "a distinct spectral colour" is bullshit. This is completely obvious if you stop masturbating about wavelengths for a minute and look at something that is purple and/or violet in colour. SAME THING. Stop quibbling semantics. People like you are the reason we've all had to learn a new mnemonic for the planets. You suck.

Sincerely,
Me

Fetching Redux

Right, so I made a lot of these gloves when I started knitting seriously. They are, in fact, one of the reasons I started knitting seriously (as opposed to just making HP scarves). I love them so much. They're fast, relatively inexpensive (i.e., they are not a $150 sweater...), beautiful, practical, and way kicky.

Now I'm making Fetching for sevensickles's birthday, with some lush Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky. (I've tried with Aran. I can't get the gauge right, and then the picot bind off ends up folding over all the time. Chunky makes the cabling stand out, looks cleaner, and makes the picot edging stand straight.) It was supposed to be in this fab dark blue to match the Ravenclaw scarf I made her forever ago, and I'd put off buying the yarn for ages because I couldn't find the right colour (well, I could, but only in Aran). But I went needle shopping the other day, and there it was! The perfect colour in Chunky. Brilliant.

Until I get it home and it turns out to not match the colour swatch from the scarf. Why didn't I take the swatch with me? I should know better! Oh, le sigh. I'm not entirely sure the difference will be noticeable, and if it is, it's still beautiful, delicious yarn.

Needles

I got my ebony needles, too! OMG. I bought a pair of Lantern Moon Destiny circulars, 40" so that I could do magic loop and knit both gloves at the same time. I was going to buy the DPNs. I sort of wish I had bought the DPNs, because 40" is only just long enough for magic loop, and I have a constant nagging feeling that I'm leaving gaps with magic loop, and I don't have that feeling with DPNs. Don't get me wrong, I like magic loop, but when you're just starting, there isn't enough of the finished object to see if there are going to be problems. And it's slow going, because I've been using aluminum needles and hardwood is very different (even if they do use "liquid silk" coating...). I feel like the yarn is snagging and rubbing away on the wood! It's not, but oh! It's so hard to suppress that feeling. (It did not help that I frogged the cast on seven or eight times, and therefore really did erode the yarn a bit.)

Technique

I also figured out how to do double knitting (mostly) all by myself. Go me! I want to make lots of pairs of things just so I can have the pleasure of doing them at the same time on one set of DPNs. I already knew the principle: you can make things double-sided by having two panels of knitting that you work at the same time. To do that, you have to overlap the loops. I'd never done double knitting before, though, and the practical details were vague in my mind. But I was having so many issues with magic loop (my brain blanked on me and I kept casting on in the wrong directions), so I cast on for DK because I had the brilliant idea that I would just DK the pair and cause myself less trouble. It took me forever to figure out how to cast on for DK without having to transfer stitches, but then when I did it was so obvious, I was embarrassed. And I got all the way through the first cable row before I realised that my tension with the ebony needles and DK was too loose, so I had to frog the whole thing and start over with magic loop. I know! Woe. But I still want to DK some socks. Because I can. Hah.

( Pictures! )

http://aristaea.livejournal.com/190531.html

Pay It Forward: I will send a handmade gift to the first 5 people who leave a comment on the above post. I don't yet know what that gift will be, but you will receive it within 365 days. The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by making a similar agreement on your blog.

I've been listening to NPR while I work on the site, and one of the programs made me stop and Google, because it was just that awesome.

The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay

This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It's the Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay, a massive collection of wrecked wooden ships that have created a sort of artificial reef and wildlife shelter. You can Google it if you're really interested. I just think the satellite view is amazing.

Yeah, so this morning I had an epiphany: if I had done "save page" and asked Firefox to save as "Web page (complete)", I could have gotten the CSS and all the image files and everything for any "official" school site I wanted, and saved myself a lot of time, angst, and effort.

I wouldn't have gotten a shiny Dreamweaver template, but this realisation has not done anything to improve my morale.

Right, so, some girls like jewellery. Some girls like shoes. Me, I like needles. No, more than that — I love needles. I perv over them. I have a needle fetish. They are smooth and firm and pointy and feel wonderful in your hands, and they come in all sorts of sizes and colours and materials. I love Addi Turbos and KnitPicks Options, all shiny silvery and slick. I lust after hardwood DPNs like the rosewood and ebony sets Lantern Moon makes. I worship circulars and the Magic Loop — as if knitting wasn't yonic enough already.

Today, when I went to get yarn, I bought some Clover bamboo needles, because I've been using 12" Addi Turbos and they make purling dashed difficult. I got 4.5mm straights and 4.25mm 16" circs. And I love them. I already had a pair of Addi Naturas, which are Addi's bamboo needles, and I liked them well enough, but I love bamboo so, so, so much. Seriously. I hate straight needles, but I would use straight needles just for the joy of bamboo. They are so utterly fabulous. They are not as fast as the nickel-plated aluminum, of course, but oh, God. Who cares, right? As long as you stay relaxed, they're quick enough. Oh. Oh. I love them. I'm going to go and watch Doctor Who and obsess over my new needles.

~~~~~

In related news, Borders carries Doctor Who Magazine. Who knew? They only had one copy, but it had John Simm on the cover. Well, I had to have that, right? And I bought Wooden Heart, which is a Ten/Martha novel, and I bought "The Visitation", because I seriously need more Adric in my life. I might go back this weekend and buy "Ghost Light". They have "Survival" out, but it's like, hideously expensive. What's up with that?

Quick question for the flist: I can buy one of the following. Which should it be?

- Pyramids of Mars
- The Green Death
- The Aztecs
- The Two Doctors
- The Three Doctors
- The Curse of Fenric
- Remembrance of the Daleks
- The Web Planet

They also got me a copy of The Ruby in the Smoke. I'm a little skeptical cos it doesn't list any commentaries or anything, just "as seen on public television". I will be hextremely disappointed if there are no commentaries or other interesting things on it. (But still happy, cos Billie Piper and JJ Field. ZOMG.)

So, I decided that I was getting way too involved in srs bzns and it wasn't good for me, and that the only way to cure that was to put down the keyboard and do something else. So I decided to embrace my Slytherinity by knitting a Dark Mark Illusion Scarf, because walking around with a super sekrit symbol of evil on my scarf is the coolest thing I've ever heard of. It would have been even cooler if I had had enough scarlet and gold yarn to make a complete scarf, but I didn't. I didn't have enough green and silver, either; the only things I have a lot of are silver grey and black, and I didn't want to use black in a scarf. I did, however, have two almost unused skeins of Paton's classic merino, in cream and . . . some green colour. (It could be lime, or olive, or moss, or peridot . . . it's a nice colour that I can't name.) And I wanted to start right away, so I decided to use that.

I got the pattern from Storm Moon Knits; it's fairly simple, since illusion knitting is just a combination of stockinette and garter stitch. I always swore I would never make a garter stitch scarf, because it's just so boring to knit forever. But the illusion pattern and the purled rows in the repeats keep it from being tedious, and I can imagine being amused enough by illusion knitting to make half a dozen scarves in different colours — provided I can find enough interesting patterns. (I would really like to devise a pattern for the Slytherin House crest. It's a fairly simple design, and I think it would translate well into a knitting chart.)

My main problem is that I hate garter stitch edging, and because the edges are different, they look different. I know the trick about slipping the first stitch in each row to keep the edges neat, but there's slip-as-if-to-knit, slip-as-if-to-purl, you have to carry the yarn on one side, one side has purling which the other side doesn't — it's just a mess. The first time I started, I kept pulling the carried yarn too tight, and the one side ended up shorter than the other, so I had to frog it and start again. I still didn't like the way it looked, so the edge changes for the first foot or so. I finally found a method that I like well enough, although it isn't an exact match: on the right side, after I turn the work, I bring the working yarn to the front, slip the first stitch as if to purl, then bring the working yarn between the loops to the back. Then I pick up the second colour and start knitting with that. It gives the edge a sort of "knotted" look that is similar to a normal garter edge.

At the moment, I'm about halfway finished, but I don't think it will be long enough. I love really long scarves that can be draped over everything, and the pattern says it's about six feet when finished. Not long enough! I want it to be at least seven or eight feet. I may or may not have enough yarn to be able to finish the scarf (and that's not including the fringe), so cross your fingers!

( pictures of what I have so far )

So I was going to go away and read my book, but then I got distracted with the Dark Mark Illusion Scarf, and now I am picking out yarn colours. This is the project I've been looking for! I haven't picked up my needles in weeks now, because I would get bored with my project five minutes into it, I hated my needles and my yarn, and I couldn't find anything that sounded even vaguely interesting. But now I have!

Cannot decide whether to go with classic Slytherin colours, or do something whacky like . . . purple and blue. Purple and green! OMG, Dark Mark Illusion scarf in scarlet and gold, y/y/mfy?

I'm rather leaning towards something with an interesting colourway, though. Like, using a solid cream colour, and then something with blue/green/purple or red/orange/gold in it. I've been wanting to do hand-dying for a while, and I happen to have some yarn for dying . . . would hand-dyed yarn be too complicated for something that is essentially just a distraction to keep me from wanking thinking about srs bzns?