cpolk

thronging at the crime scene tape border a scant 12 feet away from the actors?

that's just on TV.

I walk outside to sunshine and warm that made me regret my winter coat, wishing i'd worn a heavy sweater instead, and about a city block worth of street cordoned off with crime scene tape, and I took a good long look.

first of all, it's not one crime scene tape. it's an outer border, where they put the patrol cars, a lot of them. and then about 7 m in, another border of crime scen tape.

being on foot, I walked over to the first patrol car i saw, hailed a greeting, and asked, "Where is it safe for me to walk?" the police officer gave me directions, and they took me along the perimeter to another patrol car, and another police officer, whom I promptly hailed and asked EXACTLY THE SAME QUESTION which seemed the prudent thing. I could assume that he could figure out my purpose since I spoke to the other officer, and they may have even communicated that, but I had no way of knowing so best to be sure.

he gave me much the same directions, and I continued on my way.

when I came back three hours later, the tapes were still up.

A few hours after that, policemen were at my door wanting to know about my next door neighbor. one of them hit my face recognition as the police officer in the second car.

To say that this has made me ANXIOUS is putting it mildly.

and nearly choked laughing anyway. Scalzi is trying to kill me:

SCALZI: So, pay people nothing to help me create a book I make nothing on, for people who will refuse to pay for it.

STRAÜMANN: I wouldn’t put it that way. But yes.

STRAÜMANN and SCALZI stand for a moment, silent.

SCALZI: I’m trying to remember if you voted for Obama.

STRAÜMANN (snorts): As if I’d vote for a Communist.

If you have had occasion to be glad that you have an authenticator to protect your MMORPG account from hackers, post this message in your journal.

This might be a very short post considering the amount of time it took me to actually get the technical competence to *do* this part. It might not. let's see how it unpacks.

The gusset, because I prefer heel-flap heels to short-row heels is simple - you stop decreasing on the sole, but continue to increase over the arch:

1. k to marker, k1tbl, m1, k to end
2. k to 1 sts before marker, ktbl, k to end
3. knit plain on both needles

the question that I answered (by frogging back over and over) was when do you start doing this? The answer I came up with for this sock was "about three inches shy of my total foot length." I did the increase row ten times, adding another 20 stitches to my circumference. this was because my row gauge was ten rows to the inch - if it had been nine, I would have done the increas row nine times.

once done, I shifted my needles to arch/sole - 30 stitches on the arch, 50 stitches to the sole.

now, I do math. I want my heel to fit, so I would choose fewer stitches than this for my base - I have duck feet. this math is for people who don't have to adjust for narrow heels.

i used Wendy johnson's slip stitch gusset heel for toe up socks. you can too!

my sole at the heel is 20 stitches wide. I'm creating a bit of a curve across this center 20 stitches, because my heel curves. so:

1. knit 34 sts, KFB, k1, wrap and turn on next stitch. this leave 14 stitches untouched, so we'll go with 14 on the other side:
2. p 20 sts, PFB, p1, wrap and turn
3. k 18, make an extra stitch, k1, wrap and turn

decreasing the number of stitches knit and purled before m1, work a stitch, wrap the next stitch and turn by two every row until you are at:

8. p 8, make an extra stitch, p1, wrap and turn

now you're on the right side, so knit all the way around, picking up the wraps on the sole side, continuing to the arch. when you're ready to start on the sole side again:

Setup: K 43 (picking up wrapped stitches where you encounter them.) s1, k1, Psso, turn.

1. s1, p28, P2tog, turn
2. s1, k28, s1, k1, psso, turn

if you have a special heel stitch, this is where you use it.

repeat until all the stitches flanking have been taken up, and you have returned to the number of stitches you had on each needle before gusset shaping.

now you're just working the leg. keep in mind that you're going to have a loose spot at the point of your gusset triangle - you can twist your stithces to tighten that up, or make one in the gap and decrease it next round, or just leave the gap knowingly (instead of unknowingly, like I did. heh.)

i just had a moment of blinking bewilderment.

I just encountered an online conversation where someone related an anecdote about a friend who is so bad at writing english, her *first* language, that she lies online and says that she's from an eastern european country.

someone popped up with something less restrained than "what the actual fuck?" and asked what was wrong with someone from eastern europe speaking english.

to which we get the reply, i guess because they wouldn't have amazing spelling if it's not their native language (OH GOD DID YOU JUST--)

and the person who questioned points out that the people from that eastern european country -- which happens to be the speaker's country of origin -- anyway, that people from that country with internet access are generally priveleged enough to have very good educations. and also points out that it's a little bit insulting to assume that people from that country would be unskilled at writing english.

freaked out defensiveness ensues, and i'm left to wonder, perhaps wrongheadedly, why it's better to make up a bad lie about where you come from in order to excuse your personal incompetence at writing in english than it is to actually strive to become more skilled at writing english.

Because really. What the actual fuck.

Arch-shaped socks. because I can't do anything simple.

simple would be to use the toe up increase until i got to my desired foot length and then knit plain until it was time to start my gusset. since I use magic loop, i would keep the needles distributed to the sole and the instep, and knit around that way.

but, nothing is simple with the likes of me.

so i figure out where the center sole and center instep points are on my sock, and then pull my needles out to redistribute the stitches that way, so I have a left side, and a right side, and knit plain for a little while - until the sock covers the ball of my foot.

i then knit to the beginning of a needle, declare it as starting on the sole and ending on the instep, and this is what I do to set it up:

1. K2, slip one, knit the next, pass the slipped stitch over, knit to the last stitch, place a marker, Knit into the front and back of the last stitch

2. kfb, pm, k to last 4 sts, k2tog

3. knit plain on both needles

now I am decreasing into a bar on the sole of my foot, and increasing into a v on the arch of my foot. this will curve the knitting around so it's on a bias, and it will fit very closely and snugly to the foot. i have fairly high arches, and regular socks will *twist* around my foot because of it. as I progress with the biasing, the number of stitches will stay the same but the markers are going to move to the back of the sock, toward the sole bar, and all I do to continue this progress is:

1. k2, sl1, k1, psso, k to marker, k1tbl, m1, k to end
2. k to 1 sts before marker, ktbl, k to last 4 sts, k2tog
3. knit plain on both needles

and i do this until it's time to start the gusset and heel shaping.

I'm working on a pair of socks.

I don't usually make socks, but I love sock yarn. so much of it is so bright, beautifully colored, shiny, and in order to make things from it you need TEENY LITTLE STICKS. ARGH. so i usually look at sock yarn, sigh, and move on to worsted. the only pair of chels-made socks that might still be in existence were made from worsted weight yarn, and if they haven't worn themselves to nothing or gotten lost they live in toronto with Peter Watts and the best cat ever in the history of cats.

but this boxing day, i kept coming back to this skein of sock yarn from fleece artist. it's a semi-solid purple. PURPLE. This is not FAIR. I almost didn't buy it. I was going to walk out of a yarn store empty-handed on boxing day. no really.

I was almost to the door, explaining that nothing I saw really moved me, and that the only thing I kept coming back to was a skein of sock yarn, and my evil yarn enabler said a couple things and I was turning around to go buy the darn thing.

then i needed needles. then i needed to roll it up into two center pull balls.

then I needed a pattern. the first one I tried was a bust - it was a lace pattern and it was coming out HUGE, even at 52 stiches around and 7 stitches per inch. since the lace pattern was a 13 sts repeat, this was going to have to wait for me to buy some tinier needels and even finer yarn, and don't hold your breath for that.

so i frogged and wished i could make an arch-shaped sock. I saw one in the latest issue of knitty, and I sighed in regret because it was cuff down.

now I don't knit that many socks but I have opinions about it. and my prevailing opinions are TOE UP OR GO HOME and that knitting two at once is infinitely preferable to knitting first one sock, and then another.

Yes. this is making the matter of sock production perhaps a little more complex than it needs to be, but I'm stubborn and I am in my own peculiar way utterly lazy - I will wrestle with math and reverse engineering and general figuring out in order to get to actually *knit* a thing the way I want to knit it - because I imagine my way to be easier, even when it is *not.*

so I went looking and I found a pattern for toe-up arch shaped socks. i am warned that it is beta, and the pattern is written for a manly foot, and no gauge is given...that's all fine. take us to the precious - the technical execution of the arch shaping. I can do my own sock math, thanks.

but one thing that i learned from this pattern already, and i'm going to share it with you sock knitters of present and future. You might already know how to do it this way, and I'm late to the party. but I liked this toe increase enough to share it more widely:

1. I use Judy's magic cast-on to cast on my initial sock stitches. This cast on is very similar to the italian tubular cast on i use for double knitting, except this version uses two needles instead of one. I'm a magic loop or two circular needles knitter - I use circular needles for *everything.*

2. I stop following judy's magic cast-on right after i've knit up the stiches that sit back-legged on the needle, and do it this way for the beginning of round 2, my first increase round:

sole: k2, yo, k to last 2 sts, yo, k2, turn.
arch: k2, yo, k to last 2 sts, yo, k2, turn.

now for my knit even round, I do it like this:

sole: k2, slip yo knitwise and re-place on needle with the right leg forward, now knit it like a ktbl, creating a twisted knit stitch from the YO, k to YO, reseat the yarn over and ktbl, k2
arch: repeat

wordy explanation! but it's instantly made it easier for me to do toe increases without having to pay too much attention, because i can always tell if I'm on an increase row or not: is stitch 3 a yarn over? no? then make one. yes? then twist it and keep rolling. same for the end of the row--i just have to look for the yarn over, and if it's not there, put it there.

and that is how you make sock toe increases and watch criminal minds at the same time, because taking my eyes off shemar moore makes me sad I like to multitask.

"But that's the thing," I said. "Police are police because they want to protect you. That's why I trust them. At the base of it all, police are there to keep me safe. I'm not afraid of them."

I said that to Peter Watts, shortly before the last time I ever travelled to the United States.

Yesterday, I still believed in what I said.

I hadn't heard yet.

I am so angry, and I am so afraid. because if a middle aged, middle class well educated white dude of social prominence can get treated like this, i don't have a chance in hell.

A lot of you guys came through for me when I had an emergency that saw me homeless. Because of you I am safe and warm (oftentimes, too warm) in my own home that will not be lost because of circumstances outside my control.

The Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund has not been subverted. because there are cats, awesome cats who are fed and taken to the vet through the kibble fund, and their human should absolutely NOT be someplace stupid like jail so he can't do these things. If you can contribute to the fund, please do.

I have a hypothetical situation. it caught me flat footed because I cannot imagine being this person in this situation. I don't even know where I'd start, and so I ask for your opinion.

Say there's someone who is fairly isolated, has particular strong interests around a particular subject - could be anything. could be psychology. fly-fishing. Man from UNCLE. pizza. a particular country. world politics. tube amps.

and it's suggested that the internet is a way for them to connect to people who share their interest and create social networks...

but they've never used the internet before. they never had a computer up until now.

what advice would you give them? what would you want them to know before opening that web browser?

this is a free form question. whatever springs to mind.

if you want to link this or pass the question on, that's cool but not necessary.

I love Pannekoek. OMG. Flapjacks have nothing on this fantastic, egg-rich dutch pancake made sweet or savory depending what you cook in it.

thanks to facebook, i have found a recipe!

Basic Pannekoeken

Makes about 2 dozen without filling; 1 dozen with filling

Serve with sugar, syrup, whipped cream, or one of the accompanying suggestions.

* 4 eggs
* 4 cups milk
* 2 teaspoons coarse salt
* 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* -- Butter, for cooking

Instructions: Whisk eggs until slightly foamy. Add milk, whisking constantly, until combined. Add a pinch of salt, then slowly add flour, whisking or beating with a handheld electric mixer until batter is almost completely smooth.

Heat a 10- to 12-inch nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Add about 1 teaspoon butter, and swirl to coat bottom of pan. Add about 1/4 to 1/3 cup batter, and tilt the pan to swirl the batter around the bottom. You may need to add a bit more to make them thicker depending on how thick the batter turns out and the size of the pan.

Cook on one side until browned in spots, about 3 minutes. Flip pancake, and continue to cook until browned on second side, about 3 minutes more. Place on a plate, and cover with a large pan lid. Keep stacking the pancakes, then covering, and they will stay warm.

Per pancake: 122 calories, 5 g protein, 20 g carbohydrate, 2 g fat (1 g saturated), 41 mg cholesterol, 208 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

with the high eggs and milk content, i'm thinking that a GF flour mix might prove a decent substitute - this is an even higher egg to flour ration than cakes, so I'm thinking it might work out pretty well. I'm dreaming of being able to quarter this recipe and enjoy an old favorite. Which flours should I try using? I'm thinking rice and tapioca starch, but is there anything else i should be looking for?

Interesting.

Some of you know that I am a fan of a particular kind of cosmetic - hair and skin care products, bath stuff, and good smellies. I make some things myself, and i have tried some of the offerings from companies who market to appeal to my approach, like LUSH and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.

one store i've never patronized as a customer is Bath and Body Works, but i have heard their names tossed around by other people who share my interest. Well today i discovered that one of their former employees was fired from her job with that company because of her religion.

here's a really basic timeline: Gina Uberti books the week surrounding October 31 2008 for vacation "nearly a year in advance." those of you who are corporate drones might guess that she booked during Vacation Grab Week, which might have been in january 2008. That week's vacation was approved way back when.

Gina takes her vacation, and after she returns, her boss Sandra Schibelli complains that she took that vacation and wasn't available to her employees, and wants to know why. Gina explains that she took the time off so she could observe a religious holiday.

(I have my own opinions about having to book vacation time in order to observe religious holidays - but whatever, she asked for and recieved that time off well in advance of the date.)

Sandra Schibelli wants to know what kind of religion has a holiday around that time, and gina explains that Samhain is a wiccan holiday, one of the major ones, and that it's the new year of her religion's calendar.

Gina Uberti gets fired, because Sandra Schibelli "will be damned if I'll have a devil worshipper on my team."

As of this writing, Sandra Schibelli is still employed by Bath and Body Works.

Gina Uberti is suing Bath and Body Works, and demanding a jury trial on her suit. you can see the complaint here.

some people are moved to boycott bath and body works over this violation of Gina uberti's civil rights. Bath and Body Works is actually owned by Limited Brands, and is one of a number of companies held by limited, including victoria's secret.

"There is one question that demands an answer – a straight answer – from those who would seek to lead this nation and its people. It is a simple question: Will you use the notwithstanding clause to overturn the definition of civil marriage and deny to Canadians a right guaranteed under the Charter?

This question does not demand rhetoric. It demands clarity. There are only two legitimate answers – yes or no. Not the demagoguery we have heard, not the dodging, the flawed reasoning, the false options. Just yes or no.

Will you take away a right as guaranteed under the Charter? I, for one, will answer that question, Mr. Speaker. I will answer it clearly. I will say no.

The notwithstanding clause is part of the Charter of Rights. But there’s a reason that no prime minister has ever used it. For a prime minister to use the powers of his office to explicitly deny rather than affirm a right enshrined under the Charter would serve as a signal to all minorities that no longer can they look to the nation’s leader and to the nation’s Constitution for protection, for security, for the guarantee of their freedoms. We would risk becoming a country in which the defence of rights is weighed, calculated and debated based on electoral or other considerations.

That would set us back decades as a nation. It would be wrong for the minorities of this country. It would be wrong for Canada.

The Charter is a living document, the heartbeat of our Constitution. It is also a proclamation. It declares that as Canadians, we live under a progressive and inclusive set of fundamental beliefs about the value of the individual. It declares that we all are lessened when any one of us is denied a fundamental right.

We cannot exalt the Charter as a fundamental aspect of our national character and then use the notwithstanding clause to reject the protections that it would extend. Our rights must be eternal, not subject to political whim.

To those who value the Charter yet oppose the protection of rights for same-sex couples, I ask you: If a prime minister and a national government are willing to take away the rights of one group, what is to say they will stop at that? If the Charter is not there today to protect the rights of one minority, then how can we as a nation of minorities ever hope, ever believe, ever trust that it will be there to protect us tomorrow?

My responsibility as Prime Minister, my duty to Canada and to Canadians, is to defend the Charter in its entirety. Not to pick and choose the rights that our laws shall protect and those that are to be ignored. Not to decree those who shall be equal and those who shall not. My duty is to protect the Charter, as some in this House will not.

Let us never forget that one of the reasons that Canada is such a vibrant nation, so diverse, so rich in the many cultures and races of the world, is that immigrants who come here – as was the case with the ancestors of many of us in this chamber – feel free and are free to practice their religion, follow their faith, live as they want to live. No homogenous system of beliefs is imposed on them.

When we as a nation protect minority rights, we are protecting our multicultural nature. We are reinforcing the Canada we value. We are saying, proudly and unflinchingly, that defending rights – not just those that happen to apply to us, not just that everyone approves of, but all fundamental rights – is at the very soul of what it means to be a Canadian.

This is a vital aspect of the values we hold dear and strive to pass on to others in the world who are embattled, who endure tyranny, whose freedoms are curtailed, whose rights are violated.

Why is the Charter so important, Mr. Speaker? We have only to look at our own history. Unfortunately, Canada’s story is one in which not everyone’s rights were protected under the law. We have not been free from discrimination, bias, unfairness. There have been blatant inequalities.

Remember that it was once thought perfectly acceptable to deny women "personhood" and the right to vote. There was a time, not that long ago, that if you wore a turban, you couldn’t serve in the RCMP. The examples are many, but what’s important now is that they are part of our past, not our present.

Over time, perspectives changed. We evolved, we grew, and our laws evolved and grew with us. That is as it should be. Our laws must reflect equality not as we understood it a century or even a decade ago, but as we understand it today.

For gays and lesbians, evolving social attitudes have, over the years, prompted a number of important changes in the law. Recall that, until the late 1960s, the state believed it had the right to peek into our bedrooms. Until 1977, homosexuality was still sufficient grounds for deportation. Until 1992, gay people were prohibited from serving in the military. In many parts of the country, gays and lesbians could not designate their partners as beneficiaries under employee medical and dental benefits, insurance policies or private pensions. Until very recently, people were being fired merely for being gay.

Today, we rightly see discrimination based on sexual orientation as arbitrary, inappropriate and unfair. Looking back, we can hardly believe that such rights were ever a matter for debate. It is my hope that we will ultimately see the current debate in a similar light; realizing that nothing has been lost or sacrificed by the majority in extending full rights to the minority.

Without our relentless, inviolable commitment to equality and minority rights, Canada would not be at the forefront in accepting newcomers from all over the world, in making a virtue of our multicultural nature – the complexity of ethnicities and beliefs that make up Canada, that make us proud that we are where our world is going, not where it’s been."

--Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, February 18, 2005, Addressing the speaker of the house upon the introduction of bill C-38, now the Civil Marriage Act - a law that legalized same sex marriage across the country less than six months after its introduction

seriously, i know we've degenerated so quickly since this bill was passed. Such an awful country, with its free health care and folks not getting freaked about shit that ain't their business.

I have the most BRILLIANT idea for a neckwarmer/cowl.

yes, using noro. it's Brilliant. you folks are going to be like OMG CHELS GENIUS IZ U!

back in a couple days. :)

i keep telling myself that i should be learning how to spin, but i am intimidated by it, so i've taken a bit of a break to moonlight on a freestyle sweater project with the Noro Yarn of Drama.

the project i take my inspiration from is called Klaralund (that's a ravelry project page, and i suspect you need to be a member to see it)

basically it's an incredibly simple sweater pattern. You knit up four rectanagles. two of them form the sleeves and the shoulder saddle/yoke and the v-neckline, and then the other two rectangles are the body. the self striping yarn makes for colour interest, and this is a project thati think is as suited to noro as things made from squares.

but I didn't dig where the yoke fell on most of the women. it worked best on ladies without a prominent bust - and while I cannot claim any sort of abundance in the bosoms department, i felt i could do better for my figure if i just... messed with it a bit.

and now it's not simple. :)

I came to knitting construction from sewing construction. so i address the challenge of wrapping a three dimensional figure with a 2-d surface in knitting in the ways that I would do with flat fabric. so I wind up creating things with very obvious visual shaping - but because I prefer to work in the round, on the fly and seamless, i find some crazed ways to create this shaping. ihave a lot of fun doing this, i and i think it lends a distinctive air to things that i make. ( here's an example of what I mean: )


now i'm going to talk about knitting in my own personal kniting jargon. i'm sorry, non-knitters. :) i'm sorry, knitters who aren't me. :) this is me recording an overview of my project notes, and i just decided to share it for no real reason other than whim.

i hate seams, so i decided to avoid back and forth knitting and seaming wherever i could. So i cast on 60 stitches on my wee 16" 6mm circ, knit a few rounds garter, and then 60 rows of stockinette - and decided that i much preferred the reverse stockinette side and the way it treated the colour changes of noro kureyon.

this sleeve length is just a wee bit past my elbows. i decided that with that amount of sleeve fullness i'd find the sleeves much less cumbersome if they were draping elegantly off my elbows rather than dragging in my meal at my wrists.

When i got to the shoulder saddle/yoke, i decided that I wanted it to be the bodice as well. so i crocheted a chain of waste yarn, picked up 15 stitches to make a provisional cast on, and started gartering back and forth. I wound up with a bit of a stockinette ditch at my cast-on points, decided that i didn't mind it, and then discovered that it was vital to my shaping.

i proceeded from that ditch for 13 ridges of garter, trying the sleeve on as i went, and then short rowed the front for bodice shaping - vertical bust darts. i wrapped the first 2 rows as every stitch, and then wrapped back every other stitch for four more. I don't need a lot of front on my front, and then symmetrically wrapped back to create the dart. (if you've done horizontal front row shaping on a sweater at the bust, or perhaps for a sock heel, that's what i've done here, except vertically, and only on one end..)

i gartered plain a bit - only three ridges, and realized that my center back was in the right spot, but I still needed some coverage in the front - so I short rowed the front in order to slant the neckline and get more yarn in the front where i needed it. when I'd gotten the coverage i wanted i just knitted along the whole row, past my wraps, because the short rowing was to create a \ shape and not a 3d shaping as for the bust, and bound off.

my right hand sleeve is the same, except mirrored at the bust shaping to be the right hand sleeve. once it's don, i will seam up a couple stiches at the center back and do a fitting to decide if i've got it right for the bust, right for the shoulder drape, how far to seam up the center back and the center front. when i'm happy with the bodice fit, i will pick up stiches along the bottom edge for the bodice, garter in the round for five ridges, and then mindless stockinette (to show reverse as the right side) while fitting to adjust for waist shaping... and then hem the bottom in the round in garter at a length suitable for wear with low rise jeans.

i prefer making sweaters top down in this way because I *can* fit them to me as I go. Which means that I'm a good craftsman, but i'm not who you want writing knitting patterns!

this isn't a pattern so much as it is a method that each knitter would have to adjust for themselves. when i say that I knit for 13 rides of garter, that is an incredibly personal measurement, meant to fit me. if you were to try the same sweater, even if you used the same yarn and got the same gauge, 13 ridges might not be enough. or too much. doing a provisional cast on at the underarm for 15 stitches to make the bodice might be too short, or too long. i'm going to shape the body as an hourglass to fit my figure, and because I can do a bit of fit and flare with this yarn - but i can see how a drapier yarn could be much better suited to an a-line drop from the underbust band. I can see a way to do this so the body stripes run vertically, and wouldn't that be fun? but i think if i tired to explain how to do that i would fail miserably.

Anyway, I'll post pictures of this sweater when i'm done, and show you what happens when I decide to modify an existing pattern.

and then take another crack at explaining it again. :)

I know it probably took me longer than it should have to figure this out, but i'm very definitely in a depressive phase.

and i'm badly off enough that i can't figure out what i can do to make it better.

and yeah. the leaving the house thing? not so much. :/

So I once again have microsoft word - first time in years, and

CURLY QUOTES ARGH TEH CHELS SEZ NO

but I can't find where I can set my documents to NOT use stupid curly quotes, elongated dashes, and the like.

I really wish microsoft had a style setting that was Traditional Manuscript format - courier new 12 point, double spacing, 25 lines per page, no widow or orphan control, 50 characters per line, 5 character indent, no elongated dashes or "smart quotes" - It's chock full of layouts i do not need and never use, and I always spend days fighting with it to do something as incredibly simple as "look like I had typewritten this, please."

it's true - everything I write, everything I draft, from fiction to grocery lists, I write it in SMF. if I need to change it to look fancy AFTER the fact, then I will do that. manuallly, since I never use style templates. and if an expensive program like microsoft word won't make it simple for me to make a document do what I want - be utterly plain and unadroned, then I will eschew it in favore of Notepad.

I do a lot of writing in Notepad. Notepad never irritates me.

Edited to add: SOLVED! Hooray!

Okay, I need computer people to riddle me this

I just got a new computer. A new gaming system. It may as well be a doorstop.

When I connect to my wow server on the Big Machine, I never get a latency better than 700 MS but it is usually more like 3000 MS - and it won't stay connected for more than a couple of minutes.

when I first got it, it worked. then suddenly, late last night, it just...stopped working. and I can't figure out why.

meanwhile, my little laptop works just fine - wirelessly - for wow. I can get on no problem, latency is always good - around 200 MS, which is playable, unlike 700 and definitely unlike 3000.

when the big machine quits, sometimes I can't get a web page to come up. other times, google loads in just fine.

the desktop is hard wired, so I would expect it to be even faster than the laptop. he's what I have tried:

Power cycle the modem (useless. The laptop never ceases connection.)
power cycle the router (doesn't help the desktop, laptop still continues to function)
changed ethernet cables to the router (no change. and the laptop still works just fine.)
pulled the router out of the connection and connected the desktop ethernet directly to the modem (still doesn't work, and neither does the laptop, since it's wireless - but as soon as I put the router back in the works, the laptop works again.)

The desktop is running on Vista home pro (I have a free windows 7 upgrade offer)
the laptop is running on windows XP media edition

I used the Big machine to post this message.

okay, anybody have any ideas? I know I have some computer jocks on this f-list. Don't hate me because I have a humungous monitor. help a druid out!

So my announcement is a few days late, but I have joined the team for Shadow Unit! I am writing a future Very Special Episode. Well I will be. I have a TON of background material to go through here, guys, it's amazingly voluminous.

If you've joined my LJ lately, hi! good to see you. It tends to get dusty around these parts, but I'll be working on tracking in some content.

Biographical Information you may or may not wish to know: I have written SF stories in the past - the most recently published is a few years back. I enjoy:

Reading (I better, with the friends I keep)
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (favorite note: vetiver. yes, vetiver. I adore it.)
Knitting (I'm a sweater knitter, I'm fond of cables, socks drive me bananas but I enjoy the socks of others)
Cooking (Alas, I have abandoned my baking hobby, as I am gluten intolerant and haven't gotten over my sulk yet)
World of Warcraft (Horde. RP servers. Paladins. RAWR. I am trying to have one of every character class, however, so I may randomly hold forth on classes that are not paladins. I spend a HECK of a lot of time in Azeroth.)
Criminal Minds (I'ma tell you right now - Bear's love of Criminal Minds? All. My. Fault. You're welcome. we even committed fanfic together once.)
Rock Band (OMG BEATLES EXPANSION WAAAAANT TO PLAAAAAY)

I also have embraced natural hair, and have grown it quite long since giving up the lye. Surprisingly, That post is released for the first time on LJ - I'd private locked it, and never realized, so enjoy!

You know, I spent a little while staring at this page, not writing anything because I don't have an LJ icon that reflects this particular fandom of mine.

That's how deep and how far I've repressed talking about a major part of my life for more than two years. I don't even have a fucking LJ icon that represents it.

What is "it?"

( I'm a world of warcraft player. )

but could you all take a look at these pages, and tell me who is paying higher federal taxes?

USA, 2009

Canada, 2009

$52,000 / yr, net, income from an employer. here's my fast sketch on the math:

Canada:

$6108.90 (15% tax rate to $40,726)
$2480.28 (on the portion taxable by 22%: 52,000-40,726)

$8589.14

USA
$835 (10% tax rate to $8,350)
3840 (on the portion taxable by 15%: $33,950-8,350)
4512.5(on the portion taxable by 25%: 52,000-33,950)

$9187.50

you can even fiddle around with exchange rates, if you like, but by my math, Americans pay more federal tax than canadians do, assuming a net income of a thousand dollars a week, and no deductions for any reason at all.

and actually... the canadian tax bill *is* less than this, because the first 8000 odd dollars of your income are tax exempt, no mater how much money you make. but that's not on the website form you see there, you'd have to actually get a T1 do calculate the exemption properly.

Americans pay nearly six hundred dollars more in taxes than their northern "socialist" neighbors, and there's no federal health care system in place?

what the hell are you people paying for?