Yearly Archive: 2012

I’m attempting to knit a pattern (more on the whole block-atorium in a second), and I am completely unable to wrap my head around a key transition in the pattern. I admit that I’m test-knitting an as-yet-unpublished pattern, but I’m confident that the designer is quite talented, and she’s tried to help me through the transition in three different ways. It seems that I’m just not meant to knit this pattern.

In the past, there have been patterns that I’ve consistently screwed up on while trying to work it, but this is the first one I’ve encountered that I just couldn’t manage to knit at all, and it’s bumming me out.

About that whole, “I’m not supposed to be knitting because I’m supposed to be blocking” thing, well. Blocking requires standing and kneeling, neither of which have really been possible for the last couple of days, thanks to my latest malady: my knees are doing their best to not work. I never really realized how much one uses one’s knees, until every movement started to hurt.

I should make this be a firm statement, but I’m not that brave. So instead, I’ll put this out there, just so everyone knows what I should be doing next week.

Starting Monday morning, I would like to entertain the idea that there will be no knitting until there is blocking. It almost hurts just to say that. But, it needs to be done. I have at least three scarves, a shawl, and a toddler’s sweater that are all complete sans blocking. If I do it right, I can try to block something every day, and be done by the end of the week.

[ Amendment: If I block something and am waiting for it to dry, I am allowed to knit until such time that the item is deemed dry. ]

*deep breaths* I can do this.

Another sock is on the needles. This one is being made for Shamala, and is being knit in Mountain Colors Crazyfoot, in the Mountain Tango colorway. (more…)

I design planners for people. (Think Franklin-Covey, DayPlanner, etc. Except customized to your needs, and the information you want / need to capture, and the way you actually use your planner.) As the end of September is approaching (which had to be pointed out to me, but which I eventually accepted, with minimal kicking and screaming), I fired up InDesign to work on Q4 planner pages.

One of my common designs has a “future planning” section on the last page of each month, with sections blocked out for each of the three following months. So, as I finished working on October, I had to type in January 2013 for the first time, and that’s when it actually hit me that 2012 is more gone than not. Where the hell has this year gone?

A while back, Amazon had all the Harry Potter movies on sale for 3.99 each (streaming delivery). That is to say, all the Harry Potter movies except Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. For some reason, that wasn’t part of the sale. Strange, but whatever. I picked up the rest of them, and had them all lurking on the TiVo until I finished reading all the books. Having done that a while ago, I finally got around to working my way through the movies. Well, I have just finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and so now I’m ready for the elusive HP7.1.

Except I can’t find it to rent anywhere. Not on Amazon, or Netflix (streaming), or RedBox, or iTunes. It seems I am required to acquire physical media in order to continue my visual journey. As someone who has actively been working not to add more items to the house, this annoys me.

Does anyone know what the deal is with this particular movie, and why it can’t be had via rental, when part 2 doesn’t seem to be a problem? The only thing that springs to mind is some piece of music got slipped in that wasn’t supposed to, and there’s now a kerfluffle about copyright and use rights.

Yesterday, I stole a game from my friend Lee, and posted it to my own Facebook wall, hoping it might get a few responses. We’re now at over 70 responses, and they’re still coming in.

The rules are simple:

Take a movie title, and change something about it: remove a letter, add a letter, change a letter–whatever. Then tell us what the new movie is about.

You can see what’s been suggested so far via the link above, though you’ll probably have to be my Facebook friend in order to see the thread. You should totally join us, either on Facebook, or my blog, or LiveJournal. It’s fun!

Warning: Very long. TL; DR included at end.

I was responding to a friend who has been tenaciously trying to get me out of the goddamned house and to have food and drink and see friends and whatnot. He’s even offered to brave the Beltway to come get me and – presumably – return me home. As I was trying to write up, for the nth time, why his attempt wouldn’t work, I realized that I probably owe a similar message to several people who I have not seen in [some large time span, ranging from several months to several years].

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Wow. Many moons ago, I asked for the ability to have my audiobooks (generally provided by Audible.com) to magically sync up with my ‘printed’ (generally Kindle) books. While some people agreed that it’d be kind of neat, most didn’t see the use case, because you lose the story-teller side of the narration. However, I find that there are some books where the narrator, while pleasant and certainly easy to listen to, doesn’t actually bring that much extra to the tale, and I’ve been hoping for a  way to continue with the story even after (say) going to bed – without inflicting the audiobook on my partner.

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A rough night all around at … you know, I don’t think we’ve ever named this house. We should fix that. I suppose I could co-opt the name from the Centreville apartment, but that would 1) fail to make the distinction between separate locations, and 2) be rude, since it’s G’s house and all. Worth some thought.

Anyway, yeah. A rough night for me, and for G. And even (kind of) for the cats, as the humans kept getting up and down and thrashing around, all of which required investigation. I am incredibly tired, and yet unable to fall back asleep. So, instead, I shall whine to you, dear Internets. Aren’t you the lucky ones?

(Also, why the hell has my WordPress → LiveJournal plugin stopped working? Damnit.)

I hereby propose that the acronym YAMA (standing for ‘Yet Another Medical Appointment’) be added to the common vernacular. This works especially well, as 山 (yama) in Japanese means ‘mountain’, and those dealing with chronic (or serial) medical conditions know that the continuous treks to various medical offices feels like climbing a mountain sometimes.

The reason this springs to mind this morning is that, thanks to the suggestions of those of you who responded to my query “WTF should meri do about her knee?“, I made an appointment with my PCP. My insurance does not actually require referrals, but 1) I like my PCP quite a lot, 2) I could get an appointment reasonably quickly (Thursday), and 3) she’s well aware of how broken I am, and might just suggest some scans or whatnot to have in hand at an initial appointment with an orthopedist or whatnot.

So yeah. Thursday. Gonna be a long day, as I have YAMA (!) that morning, and am planning to hang out with Jenn afterwards, but hopefully, it will be a useful day. (Not the hanging out with Jenn part. That doesn’t have to be useful. Just fun. And that’s pretty much guaranteed.)