Kaitharshayr’s Weblog

Excuse me if I come across as a little pissed off, that would be because I am. I am currently trying to revise for my Java exam on Monday, so I’m going through the tutorials to remember some stuff, and well I have decided that whoever decided to set all the exams in May (and none in Jan) was an absolute genius!

I mean first of making us learn in 12 weeks, what I learnt in 2 years in my first degree but had forgotten, is worthy of a medal.. but then, THEN to set the damned exam 5 months, yes that’s right 5 MONTHS later.. well splendid, you really deserve lots of medals now. I think I should find you and thank you. I mean theory subjects, with an exam 5 months later? Oh well that’s hard all those facts to learn and memorise but Java? Oh no problems there at all.. I mean its just learning a whole language after all! I’m sure people could totally learn French in 12 weeks, not touch it for 5 months and then sit an exam.  I mean.. really.

I think some people out there have had to much crazy juice. Grrrrrrr.

Ahh Rafiki is funny, makes me want to watch the Lion King again, actually it’s been so long since I have watched it that I’m not even sure if I’ve quoted his line right! But anyway, yes the weather, I’m going to be terribly British and complain about the weather but, ack its tooo hot! Highs of about 23C, which I know, as C keeps telling me is not that hot, but I find it waay to hot. Between 15 and 20C thats my optimal temperature. Hells, even though I seem to have developed bad circulation in my fingers and toes, thus making them cold a lot, I even prefer it when it is colder! Its easier to dress up warm than it is to keep cool.

Whats more depressing is that May = exam month, I have 5 exams, starting this coming Monday, the weather is being nice and a lot of my friends have finished uni, thus making me jealous as I don’t finish till sept.  I would like a summer and I would like a job. I know in the long run I’ll appreciate this MSc, and in some ways I do but.. please I would like it over? Thank goodness I’m not doing it part time!

On a side note C is thinking of running a Heroes game one day, (not Heroes the TV show but the RP Heroes system) but I honestly have NO IDEA what I’d want if I had superhero powers, there’s just too many options!

Me and C went to see Iron Man last night and it was absolutely brilliant. One of the best superhero flicks I’ve seen in ages apart from Batman Begins. For what is roughly a 2 hour film it actually feels a lot longer, you get a good feel for the characters and I have to say the casting was fab! There’s a great mix of humour, action and seriousness. It was.. hmm i want to say great again, but I’ve already used that word.. lets see.. it was fun being able to watch Stark build his Iron Man costume, specially as he tried to figure out the flying part, a painful process! Plus his helper robots were awesome and dare I say cute!

Also if you haven’t seen it yet then you must stay till the end credits! Highlight the section below for a mini spoiler:

Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is going to be so awesome! I mean its Samuel L Jackson!

Also it looks like they are going to be doing a Thor and a Captain America movie.. so after that I’m betting we have some kind of Avengers movie.. although they will have to be careful they don’t have toooo many superheroes in that, it’ll get too confusing. C was reading through the first bit of his Marvel Superhero encyclopaedia and almost every Marvel superhero has been in the Avengers at one point of other.

Some people in the cinema were really low on their Geek points. At the end of the movie they were going

“Cool, if they have an Avengers movie they’ll have the awesome superheroes like Iron Man, Wolverine, (lists a few others) Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman.. (continues listing superheroes)”

Now hang on a sec and back up .. Batman? Superman? Wonder Woman? Aquaman? *le sigh* Thats DC, not Marvel, DC. Different universes my uninformed friend.

Boris won.. Boris freaking Johnson bloody won the London Mayor election. I just.. I don’t feel I have the words to describe how I feel.. well.. I do but most of them will be swear words of some description or other.

The conservatives winning is one thing, I don’t like them but if it’d been another candidate who’d one, fine I’d be disappointedly but whatever. But it wasn’t another candidate it was Mr Boris foot-in-mouth-buffoon Johnson. This is they guy who insults entire cities multiple times and hell even entire countries.  So this then is the man now in charge of London?

We’re so screwed.

Oh-er.. my blog seems to have lost all formatting at the moment.. I suspect its just a small hiccup with wordpress.

Anyway just a quick knitting update, Laminaria is progressing, albeit slowly. I’ve just done the second of the lotus blossom repeats… another 6 (!) to go.. and then the two edging charts.. and then I have to make sure I wind off enough wool so that I can use two strands to cast of with.. so much to do, but it’ll be totally worth it when its done! I’m still squeeing at the prettiness of the colours, and stitches, which for the moment my photos do no justice whatsoever.

See, its going to be pretty!

Lets see, I have also knit some Frothy Gothy Wristwarmers, for the April KAL in the Buffy group that I’m in on Ravelry.  Although I have been bad.. I haven’t exactly updated anyone with how I did, and I haven’t really finished them either… well technically they are knitted, I just have to sew the second one up.. which would be a 5 min job, but I’m but I’m being lazy about doing it.

Details:

Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed

Needles: 4mm

So me and C have been working our way through Babylon 5, we’ve flown fairly quickly through seasons 1-4, (although holiday time and such helped with that) and we’ve enjoyed it. Actually I have seen Babylon 5 before and I do like it, its not one of my fave TV shows but I like it. However now we’ve hit season 5.. and progress has sort of stopped, the first half of season 5 is just.. some of the most annoying TV ever. I mean I’ve always known S5 wasn’t good, and I have actually watched it before, and I can’t have been paying much attention then because it didn’t annoy me nearly as much as it is now. I mean the whole issue with the Telepaths is a good one, it had potential as a story line, but the execution? Gah.

Byron and his bunch of hippy telepaths? Byron may be a charismatic leader, but he doesn’t come across as being much of a planner. I mean let’s go blackmail all the alliance ambassadors with their state secrets to try and get our own telepath homeworld. I mean what? I mean firstly why did he never even try to speak to Sheridan after he found out Telepaths are the Vorlons fault, its just a straight, we should get our own homeowrld thing. And then, how exactly is this homeworld thing going to work?! I mean the kids of two telepaths are necessarily going to BE telepaths. So what are you going to do with mundanes on this telepath world? They’ll just become some sub-slave race? Or will they be rejected and sent back to Earth?

Then at the end of ep 11, when they are arresting the leaders of Byron’s hippy telepath rebellion, the prisoner’s suddenly pull out guns when Bester and his blood hounds turned up. Er WHAT?! Who the hell lets prisoners walk around with guns, why weren’t they searched. Its not like these were all small easy to hid guns, one of them was suddenly wielding a PPG rifle? *sigh* I know there was more silly stuff, I just can’t remember it all.. I may be blocking it from my mind.

Thank goodness all this sillyness is intermixed with brilliant Londo and G’Kar interaction, I love those two, always have they are such brilliant characters, and G’Kar is especially funny. And thank goodness that this telepath story line is pretty much done with, although I still think my least fave episode is the very last one on season 4.

Edit to add: Just been discussing this with my friend and I thought I’d just quote what he said about season 5.

“It was because the network (Fox, are you surprised?) had told them “S3 would be the last” “Oh, OK, you’re popular, you can have ONE more, Finish it now” “S4 was awesome, you can have your last season after all!”"

Ahh Fox, the destroyer of great TV.

You see how I wrote that all in capitals? Thats only the tinniest of indications as to how stressed I am feeling right now. I have my project proposal to hand in on the 7th, and gah.. I don’t feel like there’s enough time left.. (my own fault for starting late i guess) but.. I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing, or how to write what I need to.. I’m feeling paranoid and tense, and don’t even get me started on the fact that I have 5 exams I should revise for too. I want to go hide under a rock.. Please? gah..

Woooo! I’ve done it! Finished my first ever pair of socks, and I am pretty pleased with how they came out. The pattern was pretty simple to follow, after I’d looked at a few tutorials on short row heels. I’m not really pleased with how my heel came out, I think I did slightly too many short rows so its a bit loose there, and the cast off on the first sock is a little tight, but I can live with it. So yes very happy and I think I may well now be taken in by socks. I think I mentioned previously I’m not a sock person, but.. I am quite taken with these, and I think I may well have to knit another set of socks at some point.

Pattern: Express Lane

Yarn: Regia Color 4-ply

Needles: 2.25mm

Unlike some people I am not a complete Microsoft hater, I mean yes at times the software can be really annoying, but I have found there are some fantastic features in Office 2007, and actually I do kind of like Vista, but there are some things about it that really annoy the hell out of me.. and I have just run up against one of them.

I want to edit some Librivox files in Audacity, using version 1.3.4 which is in Beta, and the software has suddenly decided that it will open in full screen mode, or just sit in my start bar, I cannot get it into windowed mode. I have never liked working with software in full screen mode, unless 1) it is a computer game that does NOT make me queasy, or 2) I am trying to focus specifically on writing up a piece of coursework. Editing Audacity files doesn’t fall into either of these to categories. So a quick trip to the Audacity help forum suggests that I need to reset audacity by deleting a few files. Here is where I start banging heads with Vista.

I need to get here Documents and Settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Temp\, but when I get to Local Settings, Vista tells me that my Access is Denied. Why does it do this? It’s Vista’s crazy way of telling me this because these files are located elsewhere. There’s some useful information about it here, and as the guy says, if Vista can tell applications where the actual path to these files is… WTH can’t it just take me there? Now I’m going to have to waste time trying to find the file locations. *Grumble*

Edit: Blah I think I’m still tired, if I read the webpage I linked to more carefully it actually tells me where such things are.. now to see if I can fix Audacity.

I have decided/realised that I may well need to invest in getting a ball winder, winding 1500m of yarn, even with a very nice bf kindly holding the yarn for you is backbreaking!. Ok so that’s a little bit of an exagguration, but it takes AGES (several hours!) and it makes your arms ache after a while. Still I did really want to cast on with Laminaria, is it not pretty??

I knew I had to get the right yarn for this so after looking around for a while I found the perfect yarn. Hand painted Merino 2 play from Violet Green. Here are a couple of pictures:

The second one is a slightly truer colour, and is slightly smaller than it was because here’s how far I have gotten.

Its not the best picture ever, in fact its much prettier in real life, I’ve just reached the transition chart and I have to say I’ve really enjoyed knitting it so far, the Estonian lace has been really fun and it has a gorgeous effect! I can’t wait till I’ve finished it!

I’ve got so many projects on the go at the moment, that shawl, another lace project, my socks and t-shirt, and I’m waiting to cast on for a cardigan. Too many things! Still I’ll get there.

I’ve also as mentioned in my previous post started to think about making stitch makers, and here is my first attempt. I am quite happy with them, although I do need to work on my attempts at manipulating the metal with the pliers. Still practice makes perfect.