Not Another One (Star Trek)

I'm not going to say a thing about how I haven't blogged in over a week.

This evening, I watched the beginning of J.J. Abram's Star Trek for the third time, and I watched the whole thing for the first time. The first two times I attempted to watch it I somehow got bored a few minutes in. I must not have gotten all of the Spacey-Wacey references and I must not have  known that Thor was George Kirk and I must not have had the condition of watching Star Trek before I saw Into Darkness, which I only want to watch because of Sherlock.

But this time around, I sat through the entire film, and was hugely entertained by it. So entertained, in fact, that I immediately knit a yellow hexipuff and embroidered the Star Trek thing on it.

I'm not into Star Trek. My life can't take another fandom right now. But it is pretty good. (And the next one has Sherlock in it!!!)

Ten and Rose

I've said 'OMG!' more times this morning than any other time in my life (except perhaps when the new Doctor Who trailer showed up a few weeks ago). And the reason is, as usual, for some exciting Doctor Who news.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. And David Tennant is coming back.

It was announced today on the BBC One website for Doctor Who that David Tennant and Billie Piper are to return for the 50th Anniversary special. I think I'm just going to go into a quiet room for a few hours and think about this. It's too much. 

They're coming back! 

Of course, this could be really amazing- or really, really bad. But, thankfully, I have complete trust in Steven Moffat and I know that he will bring Ten and Rose back with a big bang and probably lots of tears. 

But the biggest question is, will the Doctor and Rose for the 50th Anniversary be from their days in the TARDIS spanned out across season 2, or will it be the Doctor and Rose who were abandoned in the parallel universe at the end of season 4? Or will Steven Moffat come up with something brand new and totally brilliant? Frankly, I have no idea how the gears of Moffat's ingenious mind work, so I'm not putting money on any of these options. 

What are your thoughts on Ten and Rose's return? Is it a recipe for disaster or a great increase in viewership? 

FO Friday: Not Really At All

I didn't finish my hat.

But I did finish overcoming my irrational fear of starting this pair of socks that's been queued forever! That counts, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

Okay, here's the specs: The pattern I'm using is Hermione's Everyday Socks, the yarn is Knitpicks Stroll Handpainted in the colorway Frosting, the needle size is US1, and I'm 11/15 repeats into the leg (I'm doing 15 pattern repeats instead of 18, as the pattern suggests). 

Now I can get onto what I really wanted to blog about. I had to include the stuff about the socks so I'd have a semi-valid excuse to link with Tami's Amis. Today's real topic is... Robin Hood! 

Okay, you guys have permission run screaming. I know what's going on in your head. What? Anya (or this crazy writer, if you don't know my name) is into another stupid TV show? Heaven help us all!

Or maybe you don't know what Robin Hood is (I mean don't know what Robin Hood the BBC TV series is, not don't know what Robin Hood is). And so listen carefully to the parenthetical information above: it's a BBC TV Series. It started in 2006 and it ended in 2009, and I already know that everybody dies so I don't have to be disappointed like I was with the ending of Merlin. 

I started watching Robin Hood because it has Richard Armitage (also known as Thorin Oakenshield) in it as Guy of Gisbourne. Unfortunately he's also evil, but I'm sure he'll redeem himself sometime. 

So now I'm watching Robin Hood every night (though, that will shortly end with my Spring Break). And it is completely enthralling, despite it being all about taxes and torturing people. 

I also thought the Sheriff was Prince John for the first few episodes, and still call him 'The King' whenever I talk about him. Shows how little I know about Robin Hood. 

Forever

The other day I was thinking, what if it all stops?

'It' in this case is all of the things I keep on getting obsessed with. I mean, how many things can there be that I can get into? There keep on being more fandoms to join when one begins to fade. Two and a half years ago, all that seemed to exist was Doctor Who. I didn't think there was anything that I would ever want to do over watch Doctor Who.

But then there was The Avengers this past May, and after that followed Sherlock during the summer - I wasn't obsessed with it but I still enjoyed watching it - and Merlin in the fall.

What would I do if all of these things stopped? Artemis Fowl is over, Harry Potter is over, Merlin is over, in two years The Hobbit will be over... what if all the new things stop popping up? Sure you can go back and reread/ rewatch things, which I do anyway, but eventually, that would get boring.

The nice thing is, though, it won't end. People won't stop having ideas, directors won't stop directing, actors won't stop acting and writers won't stop writing. If my own mind is anything to go by, then people all over the place are having a dozen ideas a day that are all potentially the next fandom. Who knows, maybe one of my own books will one day be as popular as Harry Potter.

(Yeah, I wish)

Geeky Emails

13 email conversations between my friend Rose and I, with the subject titles of each of the dwarves. As you can see, some of them have been going on for longer than others (i.e. Kili and Bofur), but they're all genuine conversations. 

It's totally nerdy but kind of satisfying to see all the dwarves listed in my inbox. We'll see how long we can keep up with replying to thirteen emails almost every time one of us checks our email. 

And- notice the mountain background of my inbox? I like to think of those ones as the Misty Mountains. There's another one that's a solitary peak, and I call that one the Lonely Mountain. Every segment of my life seems to have some trace of Middle Earth or the Whoniverse in it. (There's even a reference to Artemis Fowl in one of the above emails.)

WIP Wednesday: Productiveness

I've had a very productive day. I did three lessons of geometry (two of which were supposed to be done on Monday and Tuesday; but I couldn't do them then because I was busy doing Friday and Saturday's geometry), all my other schoolwork, got some knitting done, watched Arsenic and Old Lace, and dyed 7 mini skeins.

The highlight was definitely dyeing the mini skeins.

Only 6 are pictured here, and the colors aren't completely accurate, but I wanted to take some pictures before I started knitting hexiflats out of them. I'm giving all of them colorways, and I'm naming the colorways nerdy names, so from left to right: The Shire, Mirkwood, Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey, Rainbow Pumpkin Pie (not nerdy, but my sister insisted. It's actually a rose color but it shows up brown in the picture), Smaug, and The Shire 2. There's also a bright red one that wasn't quite dry so I couldn't twist it up.

Beekeepers (not actual beekeepers, but knitters who are making a beekeeper's quilt), I highly recommend this. What I did was buy a 100gm hank of bare KnitPick's Palette. I'm winding it into 30 yard mini skeins and dyeing them with food coloring. It's super cheap and it's possibly the most rewarding thing in the world. 

I think my favorites are Mirkwood and Smaug:

Smaug is actually more like a short-striping yarn with half coral and half yellow-orange/white. It's the first one I dyed and I love it. 

I was really trying to get a Mirkwood-like yarn here. Mirkwood is described in The Hobbit as dark, with a few patches of sunshine every once and a while that grow more and more infrequent as the forest grows deeper. I managed to get a murky gray-green, a few bits of brown, and some greenish-blue, but I don't think I'll really be able to get proper dark colors without black dye. 

While watching Arsenic and Old Lace, I knit a hexiflat in The Shire 2. As I had the lights off I couldn't see how it was turning out until the movie was over. I was gleeful at the result. 

Another terrible picture, sorry. The blues are more sky-colored, the oranges are lighter and brigher, and those brown stripes are actually pink. 

WIP Wednesday: Waiting for Inspiration

As I said in yesterday's post, my big order from KnitPicks arrived, and one of the wonderful items in the huge box was a pair of US6 nickel-plated needle tips and some 40" cables. It was my first pair of interchangeable needles, and I was eagerly anticipating trying them out. I had a project in mind when I purchased the needles: Holden Shawlette by Mindy Wilkes. I was planning on using the blue fingering weight yarn I spun, written about here. As the first yarn I'd spun that had enough yardage for a big project, I needed the perfect project, and this shawlette fit the bill. 

I cast on last night and have made quite a lot of progress on the stockinette portion. This part is completely mindless, especially with the help of stitch markers, and I got a lot of knitting while watching a movie last night and a Doctor Who today with my sister. 

As I knit, I'm trying to get the shawl to make me think of something from Doctor Who, Merlin, The Hobbit, or some other thing I'm obsessed with, but it really isn't working. This shawl is utterly un-geeky. But I'm sure I'll think of something nerdy to call it when I get to the lace section.  

The yarn is absolutely amazing, if I do say so myself. It's quite uneven in places, but the overall weight is fingering. While it was in the skein and ball I thought it was all blue, but it has clear hints of purple, red, green, and yellow. No matter if the end result is nerdy or not, this shawl is going to be gorgeous.

So What Is Merlin?

I seem to be getting requests by the one these days. My cousin asked me what exactly Merlin is... so here goes.

Merlin is a BBC tv show that started in 2008. It's a retelling of the Arthurian legend, with some definite twists. Firstly, Merlin is about 18 in the first season, with Arthur the same age. Guinevere is a servant who has a crush on Merlin, and Morgana is the King Uther Pendragon's ward and one of the sweetest people in Camelot. And of course nobody knows that Merlin is a sorcerer, because magic is outlawed and punishable by death so if anybody ever found out Merlin would be executed, which would kind of put a damper on the show.

So yeah, they messed up a few things with the legend. But it's still awesome. And it just gets better and better. The first season is pretty good, but not excellent. The characters are a little shy and awkward, the stories aren't fabulous, etcetera. But then season 2 is a little better, particularly the finale, and by season 3, they've got all their stories sorted out. Morgana is evil, Gwen is in love with Arthur and vice versa, and Merlin is... well, he's not as stupid as he was in the first season, anyway. 

It really is in season 3 that the show starts to get really good. The episodes are better and there are more characters than just the original four (Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, and Morgana). They also start to bring in the Knights of the Round Table (though there's no Round Table till the end) 

Elyan, Gwaine, Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot, Leon, Percival

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is, I think, the most famous story about Sir Gawain. Gwaine (they spell it differently in Merlin) is my favorite Merlin character. Firstly, because he's the handsomest in Camelot. 

He also has the best sense of humor. It seems everyone in Camelot finds his incessant chatter annoying, but it's one of the best things in every episode he's in. 

The knights are some of the best things they did to Merlin. I've already talked about Gwaine of course- but then there's Sir Leon. Sir Leon started in season 2 with one little line, but people loved him so much that now he's like the main knight. Sir Leon survives everything. Seriously, there are always these battles where every single knight dies- except for Leon. 

Those are the two knights who are really really awesome- the others are just okay. Except Elyan. I just find Elyan kind of annoying. 

Now, that's seasons 3 and 4 taken care of. you've got your knights, you've got Arthur and Guinevere, you have Morgana being purely evil, and you have Merlin saving the day. Every day. 

But then there's season 5, which is airing right now- and they brought back Mordred. Mordred first appeared in season one, played by Asa Butterfield, and he was like awesome. A little druid boy who steals the affection of Morgana, and then leaves and comes back several years later and gets knighted. 

Mordred. Is. Awesome. I love Mordred so much. 

And that just about covers it. So I may have lingered a bit on the knights- they are like the most important part of the show. 

(And don't even get me started on the Nice Druid Man who appears in 3 episodes and is possibly the coolest bloke ever.)

Morgana and Morgause

Last night's costumes were certainly a success: 

Gosh... what awesome costumes. From the top left, Morgana, Morgana, Morgause, Morgause. The hours of hard work we had to go to were well rewarded. 

The halloween party was phenomenal. All of the costumes rocked- from Crazy Cat Lady to Black Widow, but I only got a couple of pictures. Well, I didn't get the pictures. Someone else did, though.

Look! It's a Druid boy! 

Morgana with the giant Domino that's my sister Rebbeca...

My sister in law dressed up as her husband. She looked just like him- freakishly so. 

What fun we had, all topped off with an episode of Merlin with my friends Rose (Morgause) and Atheena while the big people watched a horror movie. 

I Have Made A Dragon

Due to my newfound love of Merlin, I decided the other day that I needed a dragon. I'm planning on carving a dragon out of balsa wood with the help of my dad, but I am a very impatient person and couldn't wait to get to a store. So I made a dragon out of clay instead.  (I'm still planning on carving one, too. One cannot own too many statues of dragons)

I call him Rory. I made him out of Sculpey clay, a mix of purple and black, and he is about two inches high. 

His wings are a little bit breakable, and so is his tail, and the horns on his head, and his whole head in general, and his feet. But so long as I don't drop him and don't touch him very often, I'm sure he'll last a while, at least until I can carve one out of wood. 

P.S. Sorry for not blogging for... has it really been over a week? September really slipped by... I promise to do better this month! 

Am I Obsessing Over Nothing?

Not really.

It all started in the summer of 2007, when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book and the Order of the Phoenix movie came out. It was then that I decided to read the entire series. I had already seen the first five movies; I practically grew up on the first two and the third was my favorite for a while.

It took me a very long time to read the books- the fifth one probably took about six months. But finally, I finished. And read them again. And again. And again. And again. And again. I must have read some of them eight times in a row.

As far as I can remember, here are the things I have been obsessed with in order, from 2007 to 2012

Harry Potter (2007-2009)
Lord of the Rings (2009)
Enchanted Forest Chronicles (2009- 2010)
Artemis Fowl (2010-2012)
Doctor Who (2010- )
The Dark is Rising (2011)
The Avengers/ Superman/ Batman (2012)
The Adventures of Merlin (2012- )

So in the past five years, I have been obsessed with eight different things.  That's pretty sad. Two of them are still up and running. Of course, it would be really sad if I weren't still obsessed with Merlin seeing as I've only been watching it for a week and a half. (Or is it sad that I'm already obsessed with it?) And Doctor Who, well, it's not the sort of thing you can stop being obsessed with. Especially with series 7 currently airing.

Who knows how many other amazing things there are out there, just waiting to be discovered? And to think, five years ago I thought Harry Potter was the only best thing in the world.

Doctor Who Day, 2012

Exactly two years ago yesterday was the very first time I watched Doctor Who. Exactly one year ago yesterday was the day me and my friend Rose had a sleepover to celebrate our one year anniversary of Whovianity. Yesterday was the day we baked Doctor Who cookies and figured out how old Amy Pond was and how long she and Rory have been married.

We baked sugar cookies in the afternoon  and then after dinner we cut them out and baked them.

Who is this Docy- Thor person, and why is he impersonating a Norse god?

Since it was Artemis's 16th/ 19th birthday on the first of September and we had lots of extra cookie dough, we made him some cookies too. 

From the left, Rose, Anya (me), and Rose's evil and identical twin sister, whose cheery smile isn't fooling anybody. 

 As you can see, we forgot to make the 'D' in 'Day', so Rose did the honors of cutting one out of paper. It wasn't edible, but at least we didn't have cookies spelling out 'Doctor Who Ay'.

Happy birthday, Arty. May we never delay it by almost two weeks again. 

And what a day for the Rolling Stone to publish this: 

What a great day from start to finish... apart from having to do geometry, all my other school, and nearly getting sick on cookie dough. 

Next year... will be even better. 

Give Me A Dalek Any Day

As we all should know, Asylum of the Daleks aired today at 7:20pm. That's in Britain. Here in America, it's only 4:00. But big deal.

I'm not watching it until tomorrow, but seeing as I'm extremely excited and can barely contain myself, I decided to crochet a little something to keep me happy when I'm, with any luck, terrified tomorrow afternoon.

exterminate!

It's a Dalek! I'm so happy! Of course, if it were made of something more dangerous than acrylic wool (such as metal) and was more than six inches tall, I would be anything but happy. 

I've never really liked the Daleks. They aren't scary, not to me anyways, they have very obnoxious voices. I'm sure I would probably die from fear rather than extermination if I ever came face to face with one, but when they're stuck inside a screen, they're just another annoying robot. 

That's not to say I'm dreading Asylum of the Daleks. It looks absolutely amazing. And Daleks are a necessary part of Doctor Who. Without them, the show would just be so much slimy green martians. And Weeping Angels. Weeping Angels are another necessary part of Doctor Who. But the Lonely Assassins are much better monsters than the Daleks. 

Anyway, I crocheted my Dalek, and I started to write down the pattern as I went, but then I decided that when I crochet, I kind of just do whatever works and it's kind of confusing, so I'll just let y'all use one of the many other Dalek patterns out there. Or if you really, really want my Dalek, you can request the pattern in a comment and I'll see what I can do for you. 

my thoughts exactly...

who doesn't love this?

The Doctor meets Earth's Mightiest Heroes at last...

The Avengers. It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. "Earth's Mighiest Heroes" type thing.

Most five-year-olds can draw a better superhero than I can. The same goes for my friend Rose. And yet, we still went to the trouble of drawing several. It goes the with Avengers craze.

First, my drawings:

Iron Man

Thor

The Hulk

Captain America

Hawkeye

Loki

Black Widow

And then Rose's:

Iron Man

The Hulk

Thor

Hawkeye

Captain America

Wow. I expect art museums around the world will be calling momentarily with offers of five million dollars or more.

The Teddy Bear of the Future

It's a Time Lord... and it's a Tardis-blue teddy bear. With a bow tie and suspenders. He has pants too, but they aren't very clear in this blurry picture. I had to use my phone. He used to have a fez as well, but it fell off.

I made the Doctor/bear a year ago or so, and recently he was rediscovered in my huge hammock of stuffed animals. His pants are made of brown felt, the suspenders of just everyday slightly faded red cloth, and bright red ribbon for the bow tie. The late fez was also made of felt, red. And probably embroidery thread for the tassel.

I'm so proud. I'm just accomplishing all sorts of dreams today, aren't I?

The Avengers

You could google 'The Avengers' and maybe on the millionth page my blog would come up. You could probably count on me scrolling through page after page searching for a link to my blog, if I didn't have better things that I'd rather be doing.

I recently got back from seeing it for the second time. I saw it first last Sunday, and even though that was just more than a week ago I found myself looking forward to seeing it again as soon as I found out I was going to. It's that good. 

(Okay, so that's not saying that much. I would have gladly watched The Hunger Games a week after I'd seen it, as well as a good deal of other movies. But that's completely aside from the point.)

The obvious question after seeing The Avengers is, Did you like it? That's the obvious question after every movie, unless the movie is so utterly amazing that nobody could fail to adore it or the movie is so utterly terrible that nobody could fail to hate it. But another question just as frequently asked is, Who's your favorite superhero?

I'm sure that loads of people say Loki and Hawkeye. Me included. I'm not sure you would actually classify Loki as a superhero. But he's still my favorite. It took a while for me to decide this, but after seeing it again I decided that they are the two coolest characters. Though, Iron Man comes up pretty close behind.

If you were to stay in the theater until the credits listed the special thanks just to see if you're there, like I did, you would be rewarded, not with your name in the actual credits of an actual major motion picture, but with a short clip of the Avengers, eating shawarma, looking slightly miserable, very tired (I think Captain America is actually asleep), and full. Who said waiting through the credits was a waste of time? 

Jewelry+ Hunger Games=

Mockingjay pin earrings! I'm a genius! Well, not really, because Mockingjay earrings are probably very common in the Hunger Games fan world. But anyway...

One shrunk and one not.

Shrinky dinks! Gotta love 'em. I printed out a photo of the pin, but it was way too big, so I made a small copy. I was very proud of that, because I'm a terrible artist. I'm especially bad at copying things. You'll also notice that I made mine backwards... totally by accident. It still looks like the Mockingjay, though. Right?

I actually made three little Mockingjays. You know, just in case I someday sprout a third ear and need another earring.

All three done

Here they are, all shrunk. I'm very very happy with them. 

And, the finished product:

Hunger Games Earrings!

I'm so pleased. They look especially good when I wear my hair in a Katniss-like braid:

I can actually do my own hair in a French braid, though my hair is too short for me to tie it off closer to the tips, hence a slightly pony tail effect. Oh well.

Please, comment on how you like or (heaven forbid) don't like them!

Hey, Pottermore

After months and months of waiting, Pottermore has finally opened. I am deeply hurt that they said it was going to open in early April and it didn't open until April 14th, which is totally mid-April.

Just kidding. I didn't really care enough to be deeply hurt. But I still checked it daily to see if it was still in Beta...  well, almost daily. And it doesn't really comfort me to know that there were a million other Potter fans out there.

The only thing I was really looking forward to was the sorting hat. Which was pretty cool, once I got to it. I naturally got sorted into Hufflepuff (isn't it strange how nearly every single person in the world knows those four words? Rowling, I give you credit for creating nonsense words that have become part of everyday conversation). Hufflepuff is awesome. Their common room sounds fab, with cute yellow and black decor and round doorways. Do I sense a little hobbit-ness? Plus the kitchens are right down the hall. What could get better? I bet all the Huffelpuffs know each house elf by name.

Pottermore isn't that great, but it's fun. And now I know that I actually do want to be in Hufflepuff. I mean, everybody loves badgers, si?

And yeah, I will be going back to the site. Hopefully not on a daily basis. Really hopefully.

p.s. I just saw on a preview of this post that the photo so doesn't go with the color scheme of this blog. forgive me!

All of time and space; everywhere and anywhere; Easter, 2012

Icing sugar cookies is one of the funnest activities in the Universe. I remember when we decorated cookies at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter. Now it's more like Christmas and Easter, if we get around to it.

We had a bunch of gingerbread men to ice at Christmas, but we didn't actually ice them. We just ate them. I'd wanted to do a Doctor then, but the occasion never came up. But come Easter, I was like, heck, I don't care if we don't have any gingerbread men! I'll decorate a Doctor anyway!

So I did...

The Doctor and the Tardis. I know, the Doctor isn't supposed to be a rabbit. I used what I had. Would you rather he be a basket? 

Happy Easter!