Battlestar Galactica - This show really perplexes me, its aired on SciFi and has been acclaimed as the best show on TV. I love it, its witty, meaningful and totally different. Its got me hooked. The only problem is the fans and the way the SiFi channel is treating it. There are so many nay-sayers who were forever predicting its upcoming doom, bad ratings and cancellation. Consequently I think the producers decided enough is enough and they are filming the fourth and final season, where at least we will (fingers crossed) get a conclusion to the story.
The story is the best part, and the acting from EVERYONE is fantastic. Its such a big cast and everyone pulls their weight. James Callis as Giaus Balter and Trisha Helfer as the Cylon Number 6 are just awesome together, the first two seasons are worth watching for them alone.
Here is a bit of a blurb from Wikipedia:
"Battlestar Galactica continues from the 2003 mini-series to chronicle the journey of the last surviving humans from the Twelve Colonies of Man after their nuclear annihilation by the Cylons. The survivors are led by President Laura Roslin and Commander William Adama in a ragtag fleet of ships with the Battlestar Galactica, a powerful but out-dated warship at its head. Pursued by Cylons intent on wiping out the remnants of the human race, the survivors travel across the galaxy looking for the fabled and long-lost thirteenth colony: Earth."


NCIS - This is my Fav show on Aussie TV (although we're still in between seasons at the moment). The best thing about this show is the characters and their development, each actor knows their character inside out and the writing is fantastic. Each epp they manage to get a great story with a beginning, middle and end as well as embedding an intriguing overarching story that usually surrounds the main characters.
This show is actually a spin off of Jag... and can I just say i HATED Jag with a passion just couldn't sit down and watch 5mins of it. But NCIS is totally the opposite and I really love it.
Abby the Goth Forensic scientist is my fav character, with Tony coming in close second (lurve Michael Weatherly)

Californication - This show reminds me of Sex & the City but from a more male perspective. Hank Moody played by David Duchovney is great, he's flawed and gritty with a hell of a lot of baggage much like the show itself. Its like nothing else on TV at the moment and it doesn't shy away from the whole sex, drugs and rock n roll type stuff... and that's why I really like it.

Supernatural - This show is my escapism, in terms of breakthrough TV this show isnt exactly up there, but the eye candy is exceptional :) and its a fun kind of show. Its supposed to be scary but really only kids would find this stuff scary. The relationship between the two brothers is fantastic they bounce off each other so well with some really funny moments.

From Wikipedia: "The show follows brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, who travel across the country in a black 1967 Chevy Impala investigating and combatting paranormal events and other unexplained occurrences, many of them based on American urban legends and folklore as well as classic supernatural creatures such as vampires, werewolves, and ghosts."

Smallville - I've gone off this show a little, I don't know why its taken channel 10 in OZ so long to catch up with the epps from the US. They're already half way through the 7th season in US while we've only just started season 6...but from what I've seen so far its getting a bit lame. The 5th season showed such promise with the 100th epp being pretty good, but it ended so stupidly and now I've lost interest again. I'll probably pick up the rest of the DVD's later down the track (I've already invested in 1-4 so i might as well get the whole set). I don't think they can keep stringing out the Lana/Clark angst thing or the accepting who you are stuff for much longer.... I say that and yet somehow they keep doing it... *shrug*

Bionic Woman - I'm really only interested in this show because of Katee Sackoff who's in Battlestar Galactica and I really do like her troubled Femme Fatal bad ass orginial Bionic Woman character Sarah. She hams it up a little with the excessive makeup and typical evilish facial expressions but i still love her and want to find out if they can fix her. The show is produced by the same person who does BSG and as such it's already featured a couple of the same cast members... plus a shameless plug of BSG playing on a TV in the background of a short scene in one of the BW epps.

I doubt though that this show will last very long... I give it two seasons before the ratings suck and its canned, disappointing hardcore fans... much like what happened with Dark Angel.



And you know as much as online environments for TV shows are a great way to meet and interact with people who love the same stuff that you do, sharing an environment with those people can really affect your experience of the show. BSG is my personal experience, I enjoyed the show much much more when It was on TV and I was taping it (cos it was aired at like 11.30 during the week) then watching on the weekend. I formed my own opinions without being influenced by what others thought, I went as in depth as I wanted to go and chose to ignore what I wanted to ignore. When you surround yourself with people who are so into the show, who take it apart piece by piece and analyse every little section... I felt like I lost something, like I had too much information that people were pulling each epp apart and comparing it to others. I realised then that I was no longer able to form my own opinion because it was too heavily influenced by what people in the community were saying. Of course that's my own fault for spending far too much time there, and for wanting to be spoiled - wanting to get as much info on the show as I could... which ultimately ruined the surprise and wonder that I loved so much when I watched the first season. So for the final run of BSG I'm not going to be influenced by spoilers or rabid fans striping my favourite show into pieces, and will probably influence my online involvement with other TV shows that I love.

woooo, okay haven't blogged in so long... too long: Well I was pretty sick this time last week, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

And even in that time only two exciting things have happened.

1 - got a package from my secret swapper, 1 week ago today. It was waiting for me when I got back from the Doctors - yay, no better pick me up!

Better yet, my swapper actually got me some skeins of stuff that I'd asked for in really great colours too. Nice work swap Buddie :) Here's what I got:

• 1 skein Noro Daria, i forget the colourway but its really nice, got all the colours of the rainbow!
• x2 skeins of New Zealand Merino in blue, green and greyish/black colourway - should make some really sturdy socks :)
• 1 Ball Patons SWS, in an awesome Browny black... actually in real life its got a purpley hue to it that's really cool!

Then I opened a wrapped up package and found this.... Squeeeeee! Its so nice, a crocheted caplet in a really nice red colour. Its gorgeous, I love it!

2 - I got my invite to ravelry finally. I can see how people are getting addicted to it. I really just wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and to see what kinds of patterns were on there. Its really cool to be able to see what people have made, are making and want to do in the future. It gives you an idea of what the pattern is like, any issues there might be with it and how people have overcome them.

overall very cool!

I'm still working on my Cathay Shrug, I'm almost done on my first sleeve, one more left... then I can look into how the hell you seam stuff up. I've never done it before, i hope it doesn't turn out too bad. Its taken me forever to do this stupid thing. It better damn well fit too, its the biggest size provided in the pattern and I've followed it quite closely.

I'd hoped to have it finished by now, then I got sick and lost 5 whole days, two of them during the weekend - which is when i do the most knitting. I couldn't do it while i was sick, i could barley keep my eyes open for most of the time, and unfortunately at the moment I'm still reminded of the way i felt when I was trying to knit it... its putting me off. I really hope that it doesn't put me off wearing it. I am getting back into the groove of things now though, so i think the feeling will wear off.

Its getting to the point where I cant wait to start something else! Something nice and quick - maybe a Calo with the new SWS!

damn straight i am... to Ravelry that is. I want to see what everyone is Raving about!

there are over 5000 people in front of me.... whyyyyy didn't I do it sooner!?!?!

and now just because i can and because i find it the most freaking funny thing i've ever seen:

I've finally gotten all my orders from EBay now - its so exciting to get them in the post!
First up is the Lion Brand Cotton Ease:

I got 6 in the Violet colour and 6 in Stone.

This stuff is pretty cheap but it's a new and improved version of Cotton Ease and it seems pretty good, especially for the price. I plan to knit (finally!) a something red, which will hopefully be just right for those cool summer nights.

Onto the Debbie Bliss Cathay: I wasn't sure how this yarn was going to turn out colour wise.... The photo's just don't quite capture the loveliness of this yarn. Its very small ply not sure what that would translate into... maybe 4ply, its similar to something you'd use for baby clothes. But it has a sheen that gives it a sort of silvery blueness. From what I've been reading about Cathay it tends to split quite a bit while you're knitting... although the cotton/bamboo blend yarn that I'm using also takes the occasional stroll down splitzville lane.

Hopefully this will eventually turn itself into Picovoli - maybe if i just let it fester for long enough!

With the arrival of the Debbie Bliss Cathay Pattern Book, I scrapped working on Oringina (after frogging several times due to stuffing up the lace stitch... grrrrr) and started working on the Cathay Shrug, which is what the model is wearing on the cover:

In my black Bamboozle (the cotton/bamboo blend i mentioned previously that splits a little). What I didn't realise is that this particular shrug and the one that I found on Flickr called the Fiery Bolero are actually two different patterns (although they end up with a very similar end result), the Cathay Shrug is knit in pieces and seamed, while the Fiery Bolero is knit in one big flat piece and seamed under the arms. I kinda wish I'd known that before I bought the book... AND THEN - to add insult to injury I found a copy of the Cathay Shrug on the internet for Free!! GRRRRR oh well the other patterns in this book are not bad, but I'd probably have to have nothing else to do to cast on for any of them!

I just finished the back piece last night and am now working on one of the front pieces:

I hate how long it takes me to do things, I wish I could make a decent living from doing nothing.... sigh. I cant wait for Christmas because we get the week between Christmas & New Years off where I work, we're closed, and I'm thinking of taking the rest of the 1st week of Jan off as well.... fingers crossed!

One of my first orders arrived yesterday, Lorna's Laces in Black Purl colourway.

I've heard a lot of good things about Lorna's Laces sock yarn and I can totally see why. The colourway is really nice and its going to look great as a pair of Mermaid Gloves:

Which (fingers crossed) will look something like this:

The yarn came in this envelope, which is only the size of a normal buisness size letter. The yarn was crammed in there so tight! For a moment I had no idea what it was!!

I've had to frog Orangina three times now because I keep stuffing up the lace stitches. I didnt believe people when they said they'd had the same problem! I'm going to get one repeat right then put in a lifeline this time. Luckily i hadnt gotten very far before frogging those times.

I'm hoping that one of my other packages will be waiting for me when I get home today too - sigh, the wait is so long :)

I'm quite relieved to say that over the long weekend I finally finished the Balthazar Monstrosity.
OK its not quite that bad, but like so many Balthazar's before it... it looks much better on the hanger than it does on my body!!

(we've gotten a new fandangled camera that I'm not totally sure how to work yet so some of the pics are not that great or may not really be in focus!)

One major stuff up: I've read that the rib on the bottom doesn't flatter a lot of people's hips cos it stretches a lot. So I only did about 2" of ribbing. Problem is that I'd increased the number of cast on stitches and did 2x2 ribbing instead of 1x1 cos its a lot stretchier. Then knit 2 together every 3rd stitch to get back to a number that was close to what i should have cast on for.

Consequently the ribbing wasn't too tight but was WAAAAY too short and it slanted upwards where the V joins are. To correct this I had to pick up stitches along the cast on edge.... which is what created the line you see in the pic above. I tried dozens of ways to pick up stitches but they all resulted in this line... I guess that's what you get for needing to stitch in the opposite direction.

To compensate for the slanted rise in the middle I did about 6 short rows then continued around for another couple of inches.

It's a rather strange garment... the bulky fabric implies that you'd wear it to keep warm but them the short sleeves leave your arms exposed, not great for a cold night but too warm to wear at night in summer.

Those two lines - one just under the arms and the other about and inch from the ribbing are where i put the stitches on lifelines to try it on. Unfortunatly the lifeline yarn I used was much too small and affected how the stitches sit. I guess if I blocked it they might fix themselves.

I haven't received any of my eBay yarn orders so I'm working on the Orangina in the silvery coloured 4ply cotton. Its going to take forever the yarn is so thin!!

I have a feeling that's going to be a long project too... sigh! but it looks so great!