Knitting Olympics 2010 done!

final dimensions: 30.5 inches by 30.5 inches.

yarns: worsted weight cottons held double.

needle: size 10 US

garter stitch with a crochet border

started Feb 12, 2010, finished Feb 26, 2010, 2 days before the deadline, which is the closing ceremonies of the winter olympics.

The friend I made the blanket for is expecting her first baby, a boy, in March. Her baby shower was Thursday night but I was too sick to go. She is supposed to be at a party I'm going to tonight, so I'll give it to her then.

Things that helped me get this project done:

1. big needles

2. being sick and staying home for 2 days. lots of knitting time when not napping.

3. garter stitch. so mindless, it's easy knitting even when woozy.

4. lots of TV. I watched 9 the movie about the ragdolls who come to life after the apocalypse. I watched almost all the episodes of Caprica to date on Hulu. I did manage to catch one episode on SyFy.

I missed the Battlestar Galactica boat but it's next in my Netflix queue. So I wanted to be sure to catch the Caprica boat. My favorite characters so far are Zoe, Lacy, Tamara and Sam. It's very much a character-driven drama in a sci fi setting, which I think is my favorite kind of show. Maybe I should start watching Fringe.

I'm not so much into the fighting and explosions. When I watched Buffy and Angel, I would fast forward through the fights. But pause and rewind if I saw them stop to talk. Never know when there'd be a bon mot, which is part of the joy of watching a Whedon show, the dialogue.

Winter sports

Yesterday, I got up for jury duty and thought I'd take another look at where I was to report. Upon closer reading of the jury summons, it turns out I was in a standby group. I love that we can call in and see which groups need to report the next day and it turns out my group wasn't called for duty. So back to bed I went.

I ended up taking 3 naps yesterday. It was great.

Today, I'm taking another sick day. I'm feeling better, but why push it. I will have to go into the office on Sunday to get some things done for Monday, but no other pressing things, so I'm taking it easy today. May take only 1 nap today.

So I'm watching women's curling on the winter Olympics. Kind of a funny sport. I think of a sport as something that requires skills and physical prowess. You know, something that makes you sweat and breathe hard. Not seeing much exertion in curling. Skills and strategy I see, but not sweat. It's a sedate game with lots of contemplation of strategy.

Later in the day I'm going to buy tickets for an Atlanta Thrashers hockey game. Now that's a sport. There's definitely physical exertion. Skills and strategy too but not as contemplative.

Knitting Olympics Day 13

This is how far I've gotten on the baby blanket. Tomorrow I have jury duty so that's another full day of knitting.

I've gotten knitting needles through court house security a bunch of times so I know I'll be able to knit while waiting. And the magazine's for tomorrow too.

Future TV

Here's a post at io9.com called http://io9.com/5476760/15-upcoming-tv-shows-that-could-save-small+screen-scifi

The ones that I'm looking forward to are:

1. La Femme Nikita remake. I missed the Alias boat and would like to see a show headlined by a kick ass woman. And in this case, an Asian American woman! That would be reason alone for me to watch. The only other show I can think of where the main character is an Asian American, woman or man, is "All American Girl" starring Margaret Cho.

2. Undercovers. Again another spy show, with a wife-and-husband team. Boris Kodjoe plays the husband and he's one of my co-worker's eye candy guys. Notably Kodjoe is black. Between this and La Femme Nikita, the diversity of sci fi TV certainly has improved since the 1990s. I'm thinking of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Sliders which ran 1995 to 2000s. Even though the shows are set in California (LA and San Fran respectively) they barely showed any Asian Americans or Latino/as. How can you set a show in those places and not have a significant character be Asian American or Latina? At least the police procedurals have always known to have characters of color but sci fi is behind the curve. Where was I? Oh yes, Undercovers which is created by J.J. Abrams.

3. American remake of Torchwood. Loved the British original but if they don't keep Captain Jack omnisexual, then it's just not Torchwood, and then what's the point?

4. The Walking Dead. But mainly because it's set in Georgia and Atlanta where I live. I'm not really a fan of the zombie genre.

5. The Star Wars Live Action Show. Because I was born in 1970 and Star Wars is the defining movie of my childhood. It's what turned me onto sci fi which remains my fave genre.

6. Whatever Joss Whedon makes next.

What is a hero?

Here is a post at Newicue listing the author's top 10 Whedonverse heroes. It certainly has sparked a lot of controversy. Part of it stems from the fact that different people have different definitions of the word "hero."

This is the list of Newicue's top 10 Whedonverse heroes:

Runner Up: Andrew

10. Spike

9. Wash

8. River

7. Giles

6. Jayne

5. Angel

4. Mal

3. Anya

2. Illyria

1. Wes

Right away, you can see the controversy. There's No Buffy (or Willow, Xander, Faith). On a list of Whedonverse Heroes. My other gripe is that Newicue left off Zoe, who with Mal, are the Big Damn Heroes.

If you define Hero as a person who fights the hardest for the side of good, then Buffy certainly belongs on the list.

However, there are many definitions of hero. In Serenity the movie, Mal and Zoe define a hero as someone who gets other people killed. Well, that's certainly not the case with some of the people on this list. Certainly Wash didn't get anyone killed, at least not directly. I suppose as part of the Serenity crew he got Book killed as well as the others who gave them sanctuary.

Newicue certainly has a list of great characters, but I think more of protagonists rather than heroes.

Because of the pushback they got, Newicue is doing a poll on the readers' favorite heroes. And of villains.

My definition of hero is someone who fights hard for the side of good. My favorite heroes are the ones who do it despite their own shortcomings (okay who doesn't have flaws?) and despite the odds of them succeeding. I'm also including characters who grew and changed in interesting ways. I guess in some ways, my criteria is similar as the criteria used by Newicue.

So here's my list by order of shows:

1. Buffy

2. Willow

3. Xander

4. Faith

5. Wes

6. Cordelia

7. Mal

8. Zoe

9. River

10. Simon

11. Adelle

12. Topher

My favorite all round characters, though not necessarily heroes, would include

1. Dawn

2. Wash

3. Sierra

4. November

5. Fred

6. Connor

7. Jayne

8. Spike

9. Lindsey -- but that may just be because I think Christian Kane is hot. Loving him on Leverage.

10. Drucilla

Boy or Girl?

Other than the opening ceremony, I haven't really made the Winter Olympics 2010 appointment watching.

Here's a gem from Jane Brocket's blog about the Olympics that I thought I'd share:

There are also some phenomenal thighs and gloriously weird outfits in the speedskating events - and the added entertainment of trying to guess from looking at the competitors whether we are watching a men's or a women's event.

The friend's baby blanket continues apace. Picture to come when I get onto to circular needles so it will lay flat. Otherwise you can't really tell what it looks like.

The friend's baby shower is Feb 25, one week away. At this pace, I think I'll make it. It's cotton yarn, so my arms, wrists, and elbows certainly are feeling it.

On Feb 25, I also have jury duty. I keep looking at the blue, green, yellow, and white yarn and think crochet blanket. I also think "crochet needle easier to get past courthouse security than pointy needles."

Actually, I took knitting needles into a courthouse on Monday with no problem. But still, I saw a crochet blanket in the background on Shades of Ray (watched it on Hulu.com) and have it in my head to crochet a blanket. Never mind that I have 6 unfinished projects, all hiding under the couch. I counted when I cleared out my knitting basket to make room for the Knitting Olympics baby blanket.

Shades of Ray was a cute movie, starring Zachary Levi (Chuck on "Chuck") as Ray, a half Pakistani-half white guy torn between his white girfriend Noelle and a new interest, Sana, a woman who's also Pakistani-half white. She's played by Sarah Shahi, who was on the L-Word.

It's a romantic comedy, with things to say about love, marriage (Ray's parents get a pretty good story line and Sana's parents to a lesser extent), family expectations, race, culture and self-awareness. Fran Kranz (Topher on "Dollhouse") plays Ray's best friend Sal. Sal was Topher as a clueless guy who doesn't understand women.

After I saw Shades of Ray and saw the connection to the L-Word, I was at the library and saw they had season one, discs 1 and 2 of the L-Word, so that came home with me. Have yet to watch it, or season 1 disc 1 of Mad Men.

In other TV watching news, I'm watching Sliders on Hulu. I understand that season 1 and 2 are good, and 3, 4, and 5 not so good. Lucky me that only seasons 1 and 2 are on Hulu. So far the sociologist in me is enjoying the different alternate Earths they go to. What if the USSR won the Cold War? What if penicillin and modern medicine was never invented? What if, what if, what if?

It's also funny to see the mid 1990s fashions and the total lack of cellphones.

KO 2010 day 3

This is how far I've gotten on the blanket, with iPhone for scale.

Also, I'm getting frustrated with the KnitPicks Options needles. The collar where the interchangeable needles screw onto the cable keep coming off. I know it's easy enought to glue it back on. However, the product shouldn't have failed to begin with.

If it was only one of the collars to fail, I'd figure it was just that one. However multiple collars have come off different cables and so I think it's just the quality of the product.

I'm going back to Susan Bates or the bamboo needles. Actually, I like the bamboo ones better because the size is printed on the needles themselves so I can tell right away what size they are.