More on crochet.. (sorry)

Its wierd, since I started this blog I started crochetting, and now its all I seem to blog about, so. I apologise.

Ive completed 1 of those things for my dad, I did about 1/3 of the second to notice Id made a seriously large mistake (forgot to do half the pattern haha) and so had to unpick most of it.. grr.

I got 2 of the crochet books I ordered from amazon:

***SMALL RANT ***

OK, I bought a book called "200 MORE crochet stiches" so, as the title implies you expect 200 stitches, its a darn rip off.. Im almost dreading the 300 crochet stitches (eg vol1) arriving now.. why??

well picture a square of say this

ooxxoo
ooxxoo
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
ooxxoo
ooxxoo

where x and o are different colours, of the same stitch (hence its nameless)

so, according to this book, if x = red and o = black, they've counted showing different colour combos as their 1 of 200 stitches, so if they show 3 combos... thats 3 stitches.. err no, its the same darn one.. and more if they then did

oxoxox
oxoxox
oxoxox

which forms stripes.. they'd have another 3.. all the same actual stitch.. for that..

um

THATS CHEATING, sorry, but thats cheating!! It may have only cost £7.20 but I consider myself taken for a bit of a ride there..

Similarly I also got 200 crochet blocks for blankets, throws and afghans .. they have done exactly the same thing!! Having flipped through Id say around 40-50% are identical stitched squares just in different colour patterns so, plain, lines, squares, triangles... yeah but they are the same square underneath!!! Im almost burning to sell books of crochet patterns now, as well it seems I could make a book called "100 fillet crochet patterns" and only have 20 patterns in if I showed 5 of each one in a different color!! now theres an idea...

Centenial blog..

OK, so, ideally this blog would be profound, insightful or something. But, this is me, Im good at missing an opportune moment.

So, whats happened. Michael Schumacher was declared to have deliberately stopped in a bad place to hold up the others.. me? I dont believe hes that dumb or childish.

With my top finished, Ive started on my next project, 4 things to put on the backs of chairs for my dad.. no idea what they are called. We designed one, and Ive almost finished the first, with 3 more to go after.

Even better, a friend of mine wants me to make a baby blanket for her, its great, I can do useful stuff, stuff I enjoy and I dont have to keep it!! Im really enjoying crochet but I cant picture what being able to keep all the stuff I make, things like I really want to make a nice big bedspread, but, with our 2 dogs its just not ever something you could use, I cant even use my patchwork quilt I made let alone something with holes for dog claws to catch in... and theres only so many jumpers and crocheted tops I think a girl can own

I found myself wishing my gran was alive so I could have made her a bed spread..

Odd fact you never knew about me: I still have the 1 and only pram blanket I had as a kid, its mainly blue, its a mothercare one with elephants on it. :)

Crochet edging!

So, I finished and Ive done 1 round of edging as the pattern says, but I dont want buttons on it, so the edging needed something else. Being the Queen of indecisiveness Im sitting here I must have tired upteen things as edging, I really have, single crochets, doubles, half doubles, kinda shell things, all sorts. Ive decided Im going to do a round of half doubles, and then maybe a layer of shell type things. depending on how it will look I dont want much, the shells may turn into kinda mini loops.

And heres the long awaited picture (stupid blogger was hanging when I tried to upload it)

WOOOHOOOO!!

I finally finished the last sleeve!! I can actually wear my creation now. Its not quite as baggy as I felt it would be from the picture (sigh), but it does look nice, Im not that happy with the seems, joining doesnt seem to be my strong point.

I'll do the border bit, or take a photo real soon. I promise.

Shaken not stired

Well. Thursday is around again. On tv tonight coming up is House and Greys Anatomy which are great. However, I just watched "Bride and Grooming" which basically channel 5 have taken couples about to get married and given them cosmetic surgery and so on.

I related to the woman, she weighs about as much as I do, and had similar issues in that pretty much nearly everything else can be over looked but the apron as they so kindly called it on her stomache forms, well, she was better off than me, but then I dont have quite the same puffyness around the back, so, she wins on one, loses on another.. I felt sorry for her though, while they lypo'd and a tummy tuck total weight loss of a stone (I think thats 14lbs), I know looking at my own body there would be certainly far more scope for improvement, and I think hers too.

However, she at least got hers for free..... I cant afford..

(those with nervous dispositions should stop reading here)

What bugs me is cycling to work, so its not like Im not trying to be fitter here, I can feel my stomache bouncing of my thighs as I cycle.. and its not a racer either.. if it was I wouldnt be able to breathe!!!

How StarTrek changed the world..

A show tonight was how William Shatner change the world. Its curious to look at how much of what was in StarTrek has kinda become true. I object to it being how he changed the world for, he was not the writer, producer or so on.. He was key, but he alone did not make the change. The whole crew of the USS Enterprise did.

Things like the injection things that had no obvious needles, we have those now.
Communicators.. nearly everyone has a mobile phone
MRI scans are much like a large version of tricorders
Computers - our computers are capable of speach recognition, processing and working around what we say as well as mutiple processes, large databases etc.. at the time of StarTrek 1, this just wasnt.

Apparently other wierd stuff they metion and had totally made up such as ionic propulsion.. is actually doable too!

Just a shame that "StarTrek night" has 1 frigging StarTrek show and a lot of waffle pampering to William Shatners unfortunately large ego.

Charmed forever..

So, over the weekend the last ever charmed aired. I got to see it yesterday. Now, I mean Ive watched every charmed there is, Im an avid fan. Why? I guess because like so many I would love to believe there some element of magic for real in life. The fact that charmed shows magic being hidden from people in someways makes it more real!

Series 1-7 had strong endings, even series 7 where it was potentially the end of charmed. At the point of filming the decision to make series 8 hadnt happened, and when it did happen it was a reduced budget, hence the lack of Leo, Darryl etc this year. However. What a flipping lame ending.

Im not going to give the ending away, because I know at least 1 person reading this hasnt seen it. All I can say is its a carebare attitude and seemed to just well break half the meaning and presense Charmed has had. This last series really has centered on Piper, who I feel a better affinity to. Shes not exactly a babe within charmed, shes kinda more average in a way, but that power to freeze?? oh would that be a cool thing. Premenitions.. nice.. ability to summon objects or orb.. nice.. but to freeze??how many times would you love to freeze someone, scream blue murder at them saying probably a number of over exagerations take a couple of deep breaths and then hear what they have to say.. that way you could have the satisfaction of the shouting, without any of the fall out!! (yeah I know personal gain.. bah)

Im sad Charmed is over, it would have been nice to have like the last one as a film length real big spender job.

Top Gear!

The bbc run a series called "top gear" its hillarious. In fact, most comedy programs on tv just arent as funny as this series for petrol heads.

Why is it so funny? Well, Im not sure originally it was meant to be as stupifyingly funny as it is, but a breif run down..

Richard Hammond - hamster - 36, kinda good looking, nutty, and game for a laugh. Kinda short, lots of jokes about him having his teeth whitened last series, most likely not true, but hey, was still funny to wind him up.
James May - Much like that odd uncle everyone has, nothing actually wrong with him, but then, hes just a kinda wet fish.
Jeremey Clarkson - world famous I believe, good laugh, very tall, especially when next to hamster.

They test various new cars well Maydoesnt seem to, just Hammond and Clarkson, they have a cleleb each week who go round the same racetrack in the same kinda family car, and go up on a scoreboard.

They have a "Cool wall" where cars are rated from totally uncool to sub zero.. depending on various criteria (often made up as they go along)

And then theres the challenges come sillys.

One silly was todo with a drag car and an airplane.. Which was finished in the drag racer blowing a caravan away, which was the funniest thing I ever saw..

Often the challenges are like May got a pilots license so had to fly from south of france I think to London, while Clarkson drove.. except of course May couldnt fly over various areas or at night as it turned out.. the races like that are always close.

This week the challenge was to make an anphibious car..

May got a triumph herald (about as old as me)
Hammond got a vm camper van (nick named the damper van..)
Clarkson got a toyota hilux (which they blew up, sunk, in a previous series and was deemed indestructable)

May fitted a huge sail to it but no keel, Clarkson put a very large outboard motor on, and Hammond used the existing engine to power a fan..

Hammonds van had little go, and struggled up hills and ended up being towed by clarkson
May broke his mast on the way, and broke down (as he inevitably does) but finally made it..
(Both May and Hammond
Clarkson had the least issues on the way to the water, having none :)

On entering water, Hammonds fan broke.. and rapidly began to sink. Clarkson leant him a spare outboard but it just helped it find greater depth to sink into
May did well except he floated into weededs before his sail was up, took a while to get going.
Clarksons did well, motor going.. and could do a good speed

Clarkson finally gave hamster a lift, Clarkson and hammond bombed down the water, a little too fast, and the front began to dip, taking on water, he made it to the finish first but in stopping, he rolled it.. his time was over.

Sadly for all, May made it up the ramp, well partly, took him forever, but he won!!! Now theres a turn up

blogging while the data flows.

Well, our lack of data flow continues. Currently some data is seeming to make it in and out, so I thought Id stick my head up and say Hi!

Hubby reckons hes seen 3mbit/s yeah funny how everything Ive seen is running like a dog still - of course his precious news download of tons of stuff we dont need is achiving this great speed, I tried a DSL tester and it said we were getting 534kbit/s so odd how hes getting 3192mbit/s and Im not :P

oh well. Im not dead anyway

8mb

8mb line.. Ok that's bits not bytes, but at the moment m doesn't stand for mega it stands for minutes.. 8 minutes per byte is probably not that far off!!

Yesterdays decision still stands..

I guess it could be hard to explain why the decision I made yesterday makes so much difference, when in fact, Im not sure anyone will even notice.

I was supposed to be the primary support for something. A person who has far less experience (make that no previous) has been it would seem to me, the focal point for everyone bar 4 people, me, them, our boss, and our bosses boss. (and maybe the one above.. that positions had a person change in it, the previous one did, this one.. wouldnt recognise me if I went and slapped him in the face with a pair of used socks).

To me, this means its my duty to ensure that this lesser experienced person doesnt make a mess, to document how everything is to be done, to oversee and be aware of things so that at any given time, I can be professional and fix anything, and warn of impending doom etc.

Sadly this hasnt been the case, with everyone other than the previously mentioned people going to the lesser experienced person, whispering and generally making me feel pushed out and paranoid, Im not aware of whats going on, and I have seem some things the lesser experienced person has done badly or wrong and I now cant fix it until it snaps. On top of that, the anguish in my head to slap the person has been hard in that they are blissfully happy thinking the world is happy, in fact, everyone was except me.

This was hightened by the fact that this other person took credit for some of my work yesterday with the person giving the praise sitting on my desk while it was going on.. and me right next to it all.

My decision therefore was to back off, and let this person have it all. I would be there in case of emergency, the skill wont go away. However, soul responsibility is now on this other persons shoulders, while in my eyes, he seems to clearly not fully understand it, if the management tree arent/werent/cant be prepared to make a decision and either correct those making the assumption that this other person is the only person doing this task and say this other person is doing the task but is secondary to me, please talk to me as well.. Or. I back off and let the way it is be true. I took this option as apparently the option to correct anything is not politically viable within the company right now.. sigh..

I felt much better about myself and my life (although I havent enough work to keep me occupied) until my boss told me this morning that the other key thing Im responsible for is no longer to be implemented in the future within the company. Thus leaving me with like absolutely nothing to do.

So, as you see the only thing really to change is that any crap to hand out is not mine any more,and I should no longer have to worry about not being included, for it is no longer mine.. in reality nothing changes except the most important thing of all. How I feel.

Looking back and forth

OK, looking back, in this I posted about my biorythmn and the fact I think its a load of waffle. Therefore it strikes me as rather frightening to say the least to say that if you look at todays, Ive been feeling terribly low again and oh look, all the bits are at the bottom. Much as Im still saying its waffle, I find that a scary co-incidence.

There are 2 things getting me down. Work and home. Today however, I took a very bold step to release the work issue. My manager understands, and has given me till tomorrow to think about it. Im not changing my mind, if the management cant/wont make a decision, this has done it for them with no impact to anyone really except me, and no I didnt quit!

Looking forward..

Looks like we might be upgrading from a 2mb dsl to 8mb!!!! yay! and it costs a whole 6 pounds a month more! whoohoo! I might even get some download room (Na.. hubby will suck it up) but hey, theres hope.

More looking forward the crochet is going good, once hitting the arm pits, I had to split into 3, Ive done the right front,99% of the left front with the back to go.. then 2 small arms (they're only half length. and.. tada!! sew together and done..

Look out for pictures maybe in a couple of weeks.

Merapi has a paddy!

the bbc have a nice article on Merapi, sadly their site doesnt seem to like being linked to, but they do have some pictures here.

I feel for anyone there, that looks real scary

Some updates

My creditcard was indeed due to the blizzard fiasco.. but for some reason the bank didnt bother to tell me.

another excellent volcanoe link is here - great link IMHO.

OMG!

OK, I posted a bunch of volcanoe webcams right.. you saw that.

So, thursday 11th may 12pm(bare in mind they are 9 hours behind the uk. BOTH Alaskan volcanoes have gone to yellow status, and from the webcam you can more than clearly see the sulfer fumes pooring out!! So that was around an hour after my post..

A direct link to one (best viewed in their daylight hours so from about 8am their time 5pm uk time) is this

So near, so far.

Well the weekend starts 12pm tomorrow.. Its funny how whats 15 hours away can seem so long!

Today was a georgous sunny day, all day, just such a shame I spent it at work. Today Id have done some low down and dirty jobs if it had meant I could have every day like today off.

The cycling to work seems to be getting harder not easier, I must admit I dont get it. The first day the way home seemed mainly downhill as my backside hurt so much I couldnt sit for long and coasted most of it, today, I had to peddle all of it! Stopping I was slowing to a halt.. My bum still hurts, although less Id say, but still hurts whenever I cycle..

I finally think I got to the arm pits of my top! whoohoo!

Oh, some of my fave sites to view

These sites are not funnys (well one is), but mostly this is stuff I find oddly facinating.

• Round the world earthquake monitor
• PuPu volcanoe webcam
• St Helens webcam
• Round the world volcanoe activity
  
• BEZYMIANNY webcam
• Bunch of volcanoe webcams
• GUComics - probably only nice if you play any online games

Me? unhealthy facination of earthquakes and volcanoes?? probably, but then I dont live near any, so its safe :)

Crochet update

I thought it was time for a proper update on crochet. The current work is now about 14" long. (If I havent posted a link to the pattern, its here)

Im trying to decide wether I continue a little more, make the top slightly more flattering to those like me of a larger scale who really need the top to come further down over backsides.

Sigh.. the polava continues

So.. you may remember (how could you not?) my somewhat rant about blizzard and their somewhat rude attitude about how their world wide game is not for anyone outside america, or some such judgement.

Well.. now my bank has retaliated I think. Since the blizzard incident when I tried repeatedly to get them to take the card, my credit card has disapeared from my banks online system.. Their system deserves a rant in its own right, however, in this case, my credit card has disapeared from the view, it used to appear on my statements, and well now its not.. If I try and add it, it claims its already in use.

So, I thought it might just be some bad electron day or something, so, I tried again today, still no joy.. So, I phone the online banking support crew.. Having felt I almost needed to explain that I used a "computer" to view my stuff, I had to provide various athentification stuff, this is fine, but, she took my credit card details and had full access to pretty much everything the bank knows about me..

She had to call back for my account number, as she closed the screen too early..

sigh

and of course she hasnt been able to fix it, shes had to pass it on to someone whos obviously got a computer and knows what that is.

sigh..

What ever happened to..

I remember way way back, when dos was young and programs ran.. only what you told them and when, and while viruses and the like existed, you kinda knew you had one, coz well with 640k being "mega" nothing much got in there without some knock on effect.

Now, today, Im running etrust av, windows defender and spybot.. the first 2 claim to "stop" anything from infecting me, so, and believe me I check my settings, but today, firefox (which is good against most stupid things) successfully downloaded without my permission and further more RAN the downloaded exe which then blocked everything.. and I mean everything, cant dir c:\ coz "log on privilages disabled" blah blah blah.

So, I ran a check with the av (as a different user who could still login thank goodness)..

Nothing

So, I ran windows defender check...

nothing..

ran spy bot, found sometrackers, a couple of exes that werent in memory, but.. hey..

anyway, my pc is back with me, so something it found must have been it.. but.. Just how many of these types of "keep me safe" products are you realistically needing to run to stop most of these things when nothing at all seems to actually stop it happening in the first place, only try and clean up afterwards.. grr

Depression

I should point out Im not a qualified physician etc..

However, I know Im depressed, I dont need some guy in a suit to tell me. However, difference is, I also know that no amount of pills will change the things that have me down. Im semi used to these major bouts of being low, unmotivated, feeling the world is not happy with me, feeling worthless etc. However no pill is going to change those events, they may make you forget, or believe that things are better, however, unless they really are.. it makes no difference.

Now, Im not a great believer, but, I thought Id take a look at my biorythmn and .. well its been pretty much at rock bottom both phsyical and emotional, however, Im supposed to be at a peek today! (haha), and next week.... well everythings at an all time low. In fact, if you expand it to 28 days everythings kinda at a peek today, perhaps thats why Im aware of it all..

However, a week or sos time.... I should be rocking.. I wonder how it will turn out :)

Renault Megane

A thought for you while Im watching the F1.

The Renault ad for their Megane has always had the music and words of "Shakin that ass" .. they seem to be very proud of this rather (scuse the pun) butt ugly car.. it has the rear of something in a pile up, Im sorry.. so is their ad trying to say their car is an ass?? (in case you have no idea what I mean see this.

The weekend arrives

So,

I thought it was about time for a crochet update. Its growing, but due to the tinyness of the stitches, and the fact its the whole top in a line, it grows slowly, its about 11 inches right now.. getting there, just slowly!

Blizzard.. You really do suck

Now, I dont mean this to sound like an american bashing post.. I have nothing against the sane americans, I have american friends, and love them dearly. However.

AMERICA IS NOT THE ******* CENTER OF THE WORLD OR UNIVERSE..

Ive been playing world of warcraft for around 18 months. I got a game card to start with, then paid with my creditcard, for the last 18 months, this card has happily paid for my time in the game. Last month, I thought I was quitting, why? I was a bit down, and money was feeling tight, so I cancelled.. oh what a mistake that was.

None of the details have changed, the cards balance is 0, its paid off, and has a limit of around 8.5k, so, theres plenty good on it.. so, blizzard rejected my card.. why?? My postcode.

My postcode is 7 characters long.. their box for the code is 6. Therefore the bank wont accept the card transaction coz the postcode is wrong.

After spending 25 minutes to the "free" (if in american) billing team, the rather over zelous guy Jesse who took my call only had one suggestion. Find an american who would buy me a game card and ship me it - as the US game cards cant be bought in the UK either...

I asked him if he would do it, he refused, he had no way to enter the entire code in the box, and wouldnt put me through to his supervisor.

As a girl, there are some days a month you really shouldnt anger us, you really do need to (as my friend Andy says) feed chocolate and agree to everything. Today is one of those days. Jesse my friend you really picked the wrong day to do this.

So, after explaining to him that then his company is as good as banning my account because they refused to take payment because while I dont have an american card, they do allow for people ot travel, and that travel is not always short term, and that by denying my card they are telling me that the previous 18 months play is lost, and that I cant have access to it, but, without actually any fault of my own..

After asking to speak to the supervisor and being told no as I wasnt in america.. he kinda hung up.. thus angering me even more!

Thankfully, all girls best friend is their dad. My dad lives in a place with a shorter postcode, it has the blessed 6 digits. His card of course was accepted. So, world of warcrafting can continue.. but blizzard you really really do SUCK.

Anyone got a cushion??

OK, Im not the fittest person alive, in fact, I swear Id probably a contestant for unfittest. However, since beginning of Jan I have been walking to work, so, Im obviously slightly better than I was, and following my tyres being pumped, today was the first day of cycling for well, with any real purpose.. probably around 16 years.

MY BUM HURTS

Its amazing how theres 2 bones in yer bum, you have no real knowledge of till you sit on a bike seat. I have a slightly gel filled seat so technically it could be harder, but, the instant I sat on it, I knew there would be pain.. I got to work, and it was sore.. but I coasted a lot of the way home by standing on the peddles, building speed, and then staying standing coasting along.. even so, my bum is still exceptially painful..

Sigh..

Id love to cycle in tomorrow, but, somehow, I really dont think my backside is up for the job.