end of month update

Hi all - miss me?

According to a friend of mine (and to paraphrase), 10 days is too long to go between posts. Heh. I've been playing catch-up a bit, and unfortunately, the 'yarn' section of the post will be another time, as the yarn I need to list is at home!

I finally finished The Pirate Costume. *ducks flying paper wads* Yes, I know it's October 30th. The sweater was finished on Saturday and the leggings were seamed during lunch today. I took the sweater over to S&J's last night, and it fits A *perfectly*. Plus, it appears that the leggings won't be too long - he's got a long torso and getting-longer legs, so that'll fit too. Phew. The only issue I see is that the crotch depth on the leggings is a bit long - I'm going to weave a tie thru the top ribbing to snug around his little waist. I thought for a while I was going to have to knit some suspenders, because it looked like the leggings were going to reach his armpits!!

I'll get S to send me some pics of A in the outfit so I can post them for you - it's cute!

I didn't post last week due to the fact that I feel like I lost a few days to a migraine. I did go into work on Thursday (when it was at its worst) and just felt like someone had hit me with a bludger over and around my right eye. It wasn't nearly as bad on Friday, but by then, I just couldn't bear to look at a computer screen for 9 hours, so I stayed home. I've never had a migraine before - I've had tension and sinus headaches, but never one that lasted for 3 days and wasn't affected by drugs, sleep or caffeine. Thankfully, I wasn't nauseated - to the contrary, I was hungry - but was very motion and light sensitive. For those of you who suffer from migraines, I'm sure mine was a 'mild' case, but I feel for you.

Still no word on yarn for the HP sweater - I'll be buttonholing Nancy (maybe tonight!) to see where the order is. Now that Teh Pirate is finished, I'd like to work on Big (Purple) Blue some. Yes, I have tons of socks to make, but I'm getting twitchy.

I've recorded a few more chapters of the HP fanfic audiobook, but now that I've taken a few days off, I'm concerned about what the earlier parts sound like compared to the recent ones! I've been trying to modulate between voices - the fic is set with the Trio at 18 just after the end of seventh year, and Ron in particular has a deeper voice. Harry's is a little lighter (but not much) and Ginny and Hermione's voices are different as well. I have to say, trying to express a Howler at 1 AM in one of the female voices is interesting (and No, I'm not telling you which female voice it is...you'll have to read it to find out). At least it's now a little too cool to have the windows open at night, so the neighbors don't think I'm having a row with my computer! lol

I think I'm starting to characterize the 'lesser' voices as well, and I'm having quality issues with the desktop. I'm going to have an objective person listen to the different tracks and let me know which machine to use for the recording (laptop vs. desktop). I really don't want to re-record 15+ hours, but if it comes to that....well, this is the first time I've done this. We'll see.

D-in-STL has now taken an interest in reading for audiobooks, and I thought I'd post some info here for it as well - there's a project underway to transform public domain works into audio format via the internet. The main site - which has free audiobooks, tips, volunteer forums, the works - is Librivox.org. Basically what you need to participate is a moderately good microphone, a goodly amount of space on a hard drive, some free time, and recording software. I use Audacity which has a mixer and an absolute ton of things I've never used. I did an experiment with the Noise Reducer yesterday, and got rid of a strong hum on an entire chapter section that hadn't been edited yet - it was really easy. The learning curve can be steep (as it usually is with open-source programs) but it's a very very nice little FREE program. From what I understand, quite a few podcasters also use Audacity to record their shows. Check it out. It's a good cause and it's fun.

The SRT department (that's us) here at Charter decorated for Halloween - we did a 'virus/id theft/spam' theme, complete with a 'quarantine' section and cubicles with different 'evil internet' themes. I'm the 'web pirate', so I have old VHS tapes and CD/DVDs scattered all over my cube. My two primary projects are DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) violations and password protection for users/subscribers, so me having a cubicle full of 'pirated' stuff was perfect. We'll find out tomorrow if we won the departmental competition - and then I can have my desk space back!

Well, baseball is finished for the year - and right now I think one of two things we here in St. Louis have to look forward to is maybe a good year for the Blues. They've done surprisingly well so far, but there's a loooong way to go. The Rockies got swept by the BoSox (boy does THAT sound familiar! 2004, anyone?) and so Boston is going apeshite at the moment - and Sel on her world tour is in Boston right now. What a zoo. Pro football here stinks as well - we're 0-8 (yes I said oh and eight) and the only reason we won't be losing a game this weekend is that we're on a BYE. Oi. The other bright spot is that the Missouri Tigers are ranked #9 in the country right now (woot!) and stand behind Kansas at the top of the Big 12. Yay! Go Tigers! And that is all for the sports segment of the news.

I think I'm all typed out - I'll post pics of Teh Pirate and the list of sock yarn that I managed to accrue in the past 2 weeks.

Cheers!

Edit: Sheesh, I just posted and forgot a squee - I got a comment a few days ago from one of the filkers on the SwishandFilk site (waves at ann!!!) - again, if you're interested in Potterfilk (and even if you aren't!) you should go visit this site. There are about 15 songs from there that I have a playlist on my mp3 player, and they are really good. Go!