THIS. IS. SPAR...oh wait no it's not.

Thanks to "Emptyhead51" for the welcome back and sorry for my long absence, those of you who care. ;) We've been getting a new roof put on the house, and today they're putting in a bathroom fan that -actually draws air-. ((Gasp)). It's also a great deal quieter than the previous one, which, by comparison, sounded like a jet intake. For all this noise, it was also incapable of so much as moving a Kleenex. Granted the Kleenex had -aloe- in it, but since the fan sounded like it was preparing for take off, it could have at least managed to make the tissue twitch feebly or something.

As I mentioned before, The MiniMonster is making great strides, so to speak, in getting toward standing and cruising, and I've been admittedly reading ahead a bit into the toddler books so I can foresee what I've got coming.

The Toddler books however don't include anything about random nesting instinct, or the vague prophet like certainty that we may someday be painting up a room for another kid, who in my crazed, nesting fashion I am somehow equally certain will be a girl.

... I don't make these things up. I wish I did. So yes, babies apparently make you CRAZY. It's true.

I also decided to have a fun round of "Open my Big Mouth" this morning and posted my two cents in a Ravelry Topic. The last month or so there have been several very heated debates on copyrights and knitting. Specifically the issue is weather or not a pattern designer can put a footnote on their pattern saying "You can't sell the finished product."

It's actually not that uncommon, and many designers are actually outright rude in the way they phrase these demands. I own one pattern actually with a particularly snarky footnote to that regard. I was irked and annoyed to find it, and ended up not trying (yet) to even make the pattern. Hell, there are even people who try and say "You aren't allowed to make MY design with, say Red Heart Yarn."

Now this is interesting because, and here's where the "Open my big mouth" part comes in.

Copyright law actually protects the knitter of the END PRODUCT in this case. Not the designer. The designer is considered to have received fair compensation for the PRICE OF THE PATTERN. And the finished products made from it are the sole property of the person who created them, who then has the full, LEGAL right, to sell them.

This has been confirmed by several peoples lawyers and even a letter someone got from the Bureau for Copyrights, or whatever they're actually called. ((I'm tired and I don't care to check right now.)) Which makes the resulting arguments from the handful of grouchy designers actually sound somehow more childish, since they all complain that it's 'not right', or it doesn't 'feel right'. Or even 'It's not moral'. None of which actually has the slightest bearing on the current state of the law.

...It also doesn't cause any of the complainers to stop trying to sell their patterns online.

That's actually where it kinda makes me roll my eyes. If you actually feel that the law is HORRIBLY wronging you by allowing people to sell what they make based on something you received money for, then stop selling it. Fight it if you want but no one's yet won that fight apparently.

Apparently however it makes far more sense to sit on your butt, and scream how horribly unfair it is that the product you were paid for can legally make someone else a profit.

...Somehow that sounds like bitching that the apple you sold someone was sold in a pie, and goddamn it, where's your cut.

I can kinda almost hear the people who like to know they're protected by the current law retreating from ever buying anything from those designers. Oops. More profit loss. So sad.

Mini Monster pulled himself up and then let go of his handhold, entirely on his own. He only stood upright for a few seconds, turning to look over at his shoulder at us cost him his balance, but he was at least as excited as we were.

It. Was. AWESOME.

Happy October!

Well it's finally October, so now I can begin my countdown to Halloween. I promise I'll try and get some photos of myself and MiniMonster in our costumes.

I did, in fact, finish the sock, and there's only one slight problem with it. The problem being: It's so big I could probably fit both feet into it. Or at least one and a half feet. It fits Tilmani slightly better, so I might have just used yarn thats a bit too big for the pattern. I'll knit up the other one and he can have one seriously deranged pair of socks for the weekend, and/or for sleeping in. He joked that they could be his shield against my own 'Toes from the Crypt'. C_C

I'll try again to make some socks that are actually my size, but for now it's good to know that I can actually make them. Plus the pattern in the heel gave me a great idea what to do for a dressy shawl/wrap I want to make.

MiniMonster is still a little clingy, he's chowing down on some lunch right now. I gave him his yogurt and now he's trying some crunchier snacks to practice his nomming on.

I'm also seriously looking forward to the weekend, Tilmani and I will be trying to make an excursion to a yarn festival. *HEE*

I'm a little excited. Can ya tell?

More Sock Updates

I wish this picture hadn't come out blurry, because the expression is FANTASIC.
Mini Monster is actually on our 'hearth' ((the bricks are level with the floor)) where I caught him trying to break into my yarn stash again. Yesterday he was bound and determined he was going to break in and... well I don't know what his plans were after that because he couldn't get past the zipper on the bag. So he flipped over and used a pile of quilt blocks I'm someday going to make into something for him as a pillow while he goofed around.

Yeah quilting is one of those 'someday I'm going to' projects with an vague time line. Very very vague.

I also have, for those who requested it, more sock pictures! I successfully got the heel turned, even with picking up stitches to reconnect everything, which I admit is one of my least favorite parts of knitting. I'm pretty darn pleased with myself! The next big hurdle will be, I think, closing the toe, since one of the other things I have trouble with is the Kitchener Stitch, to make a seamless closed toe.


WISH ME LUCK.

Crazy Socks, Owls, and soforth

Mini Monster is down for a nap again so I'm sneaking in some knitting and blogging.
I've got Cake Boss playing in the background, since I'm a little weird like that I guess and I kinda like having the background noise.

I haven't gotten around to trying to turn the heel yet but I think the socks look ok... so far. I'm using a pattern from "Patons Next Steps Four: Socks and Slippers". (The basic sock in superfine) and some Serenity Garden Yarn "Deborah Norville Collection" in "Gems".

This is that totally crazy yarn I mentioned before, the one I thought was self striping but kinda alternates. It's crazy, but kinda fun, court is still kind of out I admit. Tilmani thinks they'll be fun, so cross your fingers. They'll certainly be comfortable!

I also bought some orange and green yarn (Cotton Classic) to make some 'pumpkin' socks. I'm going to do the top edge, the heel, and the toe in the green, and the rest in the warm pumpkin orange. Simple, but they should be entertaining and fun.

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I've heard a lot of debate about the Guardians of Gahool movie, and I gotta admit, the trailer is STUNNING, and I kinda want to see it. I never read the books but I remember hearing good things... but then again, I know how bad Hollywood can make a good thing. I mean look at 'The Postman'. Great book. Horrendous bastardization of a film.

Damn Zombies and Unqueivalent Exchange

So today was 'game' day. Turtle, Bear and... ok he doesn't have a nickname yet so we'll call him Luxord, because he looks kinda like Luxord from kingdom Hearts.


...No seriously he does. If he ever cosplayed he would get attacked by more obsessed Jailbait than he could shake a deck of card at.

...That's also probably why he doesn't cosplay. I don't think I would in his shoes.

Anyway it was game day, so we had another run of our Dungeons and Dragons game. We're a bit more adventure oriented than treasure oriented, even though the GM is having fun using an old set up from the very early run of the game, which was pretty much originally designed for dungeon crawling, and has turned it into a lot more stuff. Including a recent assassination attempt on the Castilian of the town, for reasons we don't yet understand, Necromancers, Wizards, Thieves, Dragons... and most of the group having their entire past sealed off for them, again for reasons we don't know, by an Wizard from a previous game we'd been part of. Somehow our sealed up memories have a lot to do with everything that's going on, but since all our attempts to unlock our memories have gone pretty badly, we're having to find any connections the long way.

My own character is also getting increasingly distressed, because he seems to have developed the uncanny knack for finding, and pissing off, anything in the area with necromantic powers. And one of them from the first few days of the game is back, by the looks of it, and he's probably still pretty mad about my Rogue turning his sentient-skeleton spouse ((He's an necromancer and a zombie, there's a fun combo for you.)) into a pile of bone chips.

We didn't catch the assassin, but we did find his hiding hole, and my rogue was happy enough to clean it out for him, especially of the bottles marked as antitdotes. We're not sure if one of them will cure the Castelian, but any shot at the moment is better than none. That and since I've taken all of the poison bottles he left behind, it might cramp his style for a while.

While we were doing this: MiniMonster got out for a short walk and enjoyed the fall weather, and got to show off his skeleton shirt, pumpkin hat and nice orange coat. The orange coat was actually a coincidence but it looks pretty darn cute with his pumpkin hat. I think I might have to make him a new one at some point. Once he came back we jokingly assigned him the role of being a Kobold, since they're small, prankish, and occasionally noisy, and he was pouncing away in his bouncer so hard it was hard to hear anything for a while.

I think he kind of got a kick out of that, or at least that everyone was sort of including him in the action, though he got impatient around his dinner time, understandably, and we broke things up on a break out of the Dungeon area in which we'd uncovered the assassin.

He did have a little bit of an upset after everyone left though, he crawled across the floor and jammed his fingers on, or under, part of his Bouncer and was very upset, though fortunately not seriously hurt. We then had a bit of a debate as to weather he was injured enough that it counted as a free pass to go after and play with the lap top, or if he was ok with cuddles, kisses, and some 'Hint' water in his bottle to cool his mouth (We think he's teething again) and his fingers.
He thought it was an equivalent exchange, I said it wasn't. I won, but not without an argument.

I also got a little knitting in. I'm trying to knit a sock using "Premier" yarns sock yarn in 'Gems'.
It's... knitting up very interesting. It started out looking like it was going to be self striping, then broke into a big band of jumbled colors, now seems to have gone back into something kind of like self striping. I'll take a picture tomorrow when the lighting is better.

We made Hungarian Goulash for the group, and that completely disappeared, which is a great sign of a successful dish. Apparently the Spice Cake I made for Tilmani and a potluck late last week also went over very well. It was Spice Cake with Cream Cheese frosting and homemade apple butter layered in the middle. Those who tried it said it came out great, which was a relief. It leaked apple butter overnight before it went in to work, and I was worried it wouldn't come out well, but all reports say otherwise. Nice to know something I made didn't turn out a disaster!

I have one last giggle for everyone before I stop writing for the night. Tilmani found this one and I had to laugh, even though i only saw the very tail end.
You'd have to be a little familiar with Pokemon to get part of it, but I've always noted that the game would be hugely different if the Pokemon, most of which wield some kind of elemental power, some of which are ridiculously HUGE (like Gyradros.) Were actually as dangerous as they really should be.



((I actually played a 'serious' version of pokemon as a RPG once. It was a ton of fun. My trainer actually only had one Pokemon, an Absol, which are a pokemon with an scythe like blade on their head and impressive claws. He also only had one hand, specifically BECAUSE of that Pokemon. It was actually an fun game while it lasted.

Ahhh. The Reminiscing of the Geeks.

Food Coma

I should probably switch to blogging in the evening, since apparently my pork loin plans didn't go quite... well. As planned.

I picked a different brand than last time, and it took longer to cook than the package indicated, and while it smelled good, it really didn't -taste- that good. The delicious smell pretty much stayed surface only, and the pork loin itself was sort of dry and overall, barely flavorful. The Apple-Bourbon one we had last time was about a hundred times better.

Tilmani made pancakes this morning though, to try and make the weekend get off to a good start since last night I ended up so frustrated at everything going wrong at the tail end of the day I ended up in kind of a funk-mood.

It seems to have worked. Mini Monster, who had a dash of apple-butter in his oatmeal (Homemade), and two pieces of plain pancake, is talking to his pacifier, and punching the buttons on an musical frog thing that was originally for his car seat, but never got hung. ((I rediscovered it under the laundry yesterday. It's kind of surreal when you put the laundry pile down on something and from somewhere in the depths you hear perky music, and slowly realize that in the pile of stuff that somehow never made it to the closet, is a musical gizmo.

The pancakes were delicious. :3

I'm also watching Tilmani play "Resonance of Fate". It's a little hard to figure out at first what the story is, so I actually cheated and read the Wiki, but it's a pretty cool game. Sort of steam punk and with some pretty funny dialogue. Vashyron and Leanne are my favorite out of the three protagonists. It is a shooter game though, so that might put some people off, though most of what's getting blown up are mutants and machines.

Might write some more later. My half finished cup of coffee is calling.