A couple of weeks ago I was about to start a day of packing and organizing and cleaning up so I decided to pick some light tv accompaniment and I chose: "Surface: the complete series", which got a whopping 3.9 stars out of 5 by 13,191 netflix viewers. A little sci fi, a little action, a little vacuuming, and a lot of deliberation about which knitting project to pack.

**please note: I'm going to ruin both the plot and the ending of this series so if you plan to watch the Surface series you should do it before you read further**

So, I started the first episode and got down to business. It started out fine, good production quality, mostly likable characters, a few single people to add a bit of romance, and a cute kid. As the plot unraveled it became clear that the earth was infested with lizard like animals that are somewhat difficult to kill. In fact as the plot progressed we learned that not only did these animals grow to a large size in the ocean and have the ability to emit a large electrical signal when provoked, but they were basically invincible and were able to withstand the uncomfortable conditions in the core of the earth. So much so that they were digging holes in the ocean right through the center of the earth, which as you can imagine is a tad problematic on the global warming front (sadly they didn't say anything about the core of the earth spinning as they did in that great sci fi movie: Core). So as I got to the last few episodes and managed to stuff all my wedding bits and several knitting projects into my suitcase I started to think, wow the writers of this series are pretty courageous - animals that can't be killed, the hot stuff at the center of the earth is starting to erupt into the ocean, the whole world is about to end, and there are only a few episodes left. This is going to have a great ending!  Also armed with the information that this show has only one season I was ready for a great finale to send me off to 8 hours squished on a plane. So, the last episode starts and we seem to be lacking in any sort of humans banning together to survive sort of plan.  I even checked to see if it was an extra long episode; a plan can easily be formulated for this sort of thing in two hours.  Alas, it was just a regular 43 minute episode but I was undistracted (possibly slightly delirious with sleep deprivation) and ready for a great, exciting, adventure filled ending. Then we got dangerously close to the end and I started to get a bit suspicious. Then the episode ended. With the whole earth under water. The beasts won. And our faithful heroes are sitting like idiots on a tall building looking out over the devastated, water covered earth, watching the giant lizards swim around. I was crushed.  If, at that very moment, someone had said to me: "look, gullible is written on your ceiling," I would definitely have had to look up.

Here are my socks, I finished them last weekend but I only just wore them today. They are nice and warm although not stiflingly so, I'm happy with how they turned out and I can't wait to make more socks!

Many people have been clamoring for photo's of my Queen of Hearts costume from my birthday party so here are a few. I didn't take any photos at the party, I was to busy having fun but I did manage to collect a few from Kim's brother (note that my brother was also at the party but he didn't take any photos either).

Certainly part of being queen is having proper tea, Kim got me a teapot for 6 and one for 2 and I brought the smaller one home with me

I got these really tiny dpn's at Joanns a few weeks ago and since I managed to break my circular needles I decided to give them a try. They are actually working out quite well, I like how short they are, it is much easier to turn the project and they don't get stuck up my sleeve like the long ones do.

The gloves are finished and I gave them to my friend and she said that she liked them, fortunately they are still useful as an incredibly late Christmas present because it is still freezing cold here.

Apparently charities here in the UK feel that if you have a pen in your hand when you receive the request for funds you will be more likely to send money rather than just leaving it to do later, or throwing it away. People must have wised up to this technique and began throwing mail away when they could feel a pen in the envelope, since the lump of a pen is a sure sign of a request for money. Undaunted by the pen identification problem, this particular charity has apparently decided to go for a camouflaging technique of making a super flat pen. Because surely when you open the envelope and think "blast, tricked by a hidden pen!" you will then find yourself with a pen in one hand and a request for money in the other hand and you will be forced as if by good citizen impulse to fill it out and send it back. Or something.

I've added an RSS feed to my site, I validated it and checked that it should be working but I don't normally use RSS so I'd love to know what RSS users think. The url is:
http://www.cleverbit.org/rss/cleverbitRSS.php.