full story at http://thegfcfcookbook.blogspot.com/2009/12/every-celiacs-nightmare.html

"It was the recurring nightmare that many celiacs have. You discover a wonderful new company baking gluten-free bread. The owner is a celiac and assures you that his facility is 100% free of gluten. It tastes incredible. Like "real" bread. And you gorge yourself on it.

Then, a few days later, you show severe symptoms of being "glutened." You can't figure out what's causing the reactions, but soon your entire body is broken out in a rash. You're sick as a dog. At last, it dawns on you--that wonderful bread you purchased from that nice man. It must be cross-contaminated.

You drive to the factory, prepared to discuss the matter with the owner of the company. And that's when you see it, through the window. He's holding a loaf of bread, still in the packaging. You recognize the label--it's a wholesale bread company. As you watch, paralyzed with horror, he slips the bread out of its package and places it into new, gluten-free packaging."

sie's talking about http://www.greatspecialtyproducts.com/

note how the image for "roasted garlic batard" on their site is an obvious reverse of the rustic olive bread from tribeca ovens,a non-gluten-free bakery.

the sesame loaf at great speciality is the same photo as the seeded french demi baguette at tribeca.

several other photos on the great speciality products pages are also clearly taken from the tribeca pages.

(crossposted to my own journals)

So I have these three bars of soap covered for my MIL. Mom and I figured out that I could make a really nice gift basket for MIL with the soap and a couple of handknit washcloths. The basket we purchased at Goodwill for $.29, and the yarn -- two skeins of Sugar 'n Cream worsted cotton -- was $4.50. The yarn is variegated light and medium blues to match the soap sweaters (which are marled light and medium blues). I got some ribbon so I could put a nice bow on the basket. It's checked, which isn't my favorite, but Michael's didn't have much in the way of light or medium blue wired ribbon. It should still look nice.

I figure I'll put the basket, with everything in it, into a gift bag with tissue paper at the top. Yes, I could cellophane the basket, but I don't want to spend the time or money on doing it. (I know, I know, I'll spend a total of about ten or twelve hours knitting her presents, but I don't want to mess with cellophane. I'm weird that way.)

For the washcloths I'm going to do one in a basketweave pattern, and the other in a knit-and-purl pattern I haven't selected yet. Something simple, because I don't want it to look busy with the two-toned yarn...

Is there an equivalent for the Wii to the XBox's "Lips" game?

That doesn't suck?

Is there a state of the art for legal cross-site cookie consumption?

That is, if I own example.com and otherexample.com, is there code I can put on both to allow both to consume (not even set, just consume) each other's cookies?

Note that I know how to do this for foo.example.com and bar.example.com, but in this case, I'm talking two distinct second-level domains.

I know how to do this with an exploit, but I'm hoping that there's an ethical solution when both sites are cooperating...

Hello. I'm actually an agnostic (as is my fiancee), but am quite close to atheism. In other words, like Richard Dawkins, I admit I cannot prove God does not exist -- but I view his existence as no more or less likely than that of Zeus.

I'm also not yet a parent.

So why am I here? My fiancee and I want to have children. We live in Arkansas (USA), surrounded by religion-brainwashed people, and I'm going to be mostly "lurking" here, seeking good ideas on how we can protect our children from the world's most widespread (and most harmful) mental illness. In other words, I'm studying for what is to come. It seems like a good idea.

I can't even do regular finger painting.

This is a very interesting article. I guess it is possible now for scientists to create human sperm cells in a laboratory from stem cells. (It is hard to believe that Catholics are still debating about whether or not their god cares if you wear a condom). This rate of science evolution is exciting and a little scary. On one hand, it is quite thrilling to think that science is doing things that even our generation thought only "God" could do. On the other hand, it reminds me a lot of Huxley's "Brave New World". What is your opinion?

Link to full article is at the godlessjoy community: http://community.livejournal.com/godlessjoy

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Wondersquid at her tap private lesson.

I love the way Neil Gaiman thinks and phrases things. In a recent tweet he says, "Taking a white dog for a walk in the snow at twilight is a bit hypothetical. I trudge & something invisible goes "pad pad pant" sometimes."

I can picture gardenwaltz saying something similar. It's one of the reasons I love reading her posts, too.


Best. Roomie. Ever.

Holidaze Sauce: Making it (less) weary and slight
Friday, December 18th, 8:00 p.m.
Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, 619 S. Main Street
$5 to 50 sliding scale, to benefit ART and Duffy's Heart Fund
The hoary chestnuts of the holidaze season (Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Solstice, Human Light, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year's) will be roasted over an open fire of wit. And there also may be a bit of joy to the world celebration as well as cynical criticism; we like to mix and match so the audience is stirred but not shaken. Content tends to be very adult and irreverent.

So far the line up includes sing-a-longs, songs, storytelling, poems, performance, video and "Dear Sheila Claws" letters.  Performances by Shamrock McShane, Sheila Bishop, David Maas, Jimmy Nil Fishhawk, Johnny Rocket and Victoria Bradbury. Video work by frog, Zach Castedo and Bryan Konessky. And maybe a few surprises. It will be just like Christmas!  

A crookedletter cabaret to benefit the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre and Duffy's Heart Fund, a fund created by The Helping Hands Clinic to meet the needs of homeless women. You also are encouraged to bring canned food, hygiene products, candles and white socks for The Home Van.


Bah Humbug: Gainesville Holiday Extravaganza
Sunday, December 20th, 7:00 p.m.
Daacha Gallery, 11 SE 5th Ave
$3-5 sliding scale
Come out to this show of puppets by Kathy & Kathleen and company, plus music by The Bathtub Minstrels and the Hogtown Bah-Humbug Extravaganza Christmas Carol Pick-up Band Orchestra. Bring a silly small wrapped gift and sit on Santa's lap.  Some content may be adult.

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An Old-Fashioned Christmas

Thursday:
2 min on/2 min slow intervals on the elliptical (no arm thingees) for 20 minutes.
Distance: 1.61 miles
HR: Average 131, Max 142.

It looks this is the way I'm going to 1) up my energy levels and 2) up my metabolism.

I am looking for a decent Vet in Gainesville that doesn't charge you an arm and a leg everytime you take your dog in for a visit. I most recently used Timberview Pet Clinic but everytime I would go I could not get out of there for less than $150 .. Way too much $$ especially if your dog isn't really sick and just going in for normal check ups.


thanks in advance,


Ken

I need a car (really) cheap.
Not having any luck on craigslist.
Thanks for any leads... ( Read more... )

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Blue-Black Socks for Mike
Originally uploaded by caligatia

Yarn is Trekking XXL (the blue) and Louet Gems fingering weight (the black). Pattern is my standard toe-up sock recipe.

I knitted the foot and heel on Wed. 12/16, and did the leg on Thurs. 12/17. Two days to make a sock, plus doing a soap sweater a day -- and my hands don't hurt in the slightest. I still can't write with a pen for longer than five minutes without pain, but as long as I can type and knit I think I'll be okay. Now, if I can just figure out how to use my spinning wheel without pain...

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So, I got fired from my job today.

Some of you may remember that I worked at a candy store. How do you get fired from a candy store, you ask?

Well, allow me to show you how, in pictures.

( How to get fired from a candy store: )

Sigh. Really, it's just one of those days. I really did enjoy working there, and I'm sad that it had to end on account of something so ridiculous. We took it home, and now it's sitting on our dining room table, a testament to my (now former) job. I mean, if I got fired over it, I may as well enjoy the hell out of it, right?

So, umm... Anyone know where I can find a job?

Blue Seed Stitch Soap Sweater
Originally uploaded by caligatia

Yarn is Patons Classic Wool. Pattern is improvised. Soap is Hanks Goats' Milk in "Gingersnaps".

I started this at home today and finished it later on at Hanks. Only one left to go, and then my mother-in-law's Christmas presents will be done.

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Nope, nope, not getting drawn into the how much writers should get paid for short fiction debate, nope, nope. (I will say that I'm pretty astounded that other writers have so much time for this debate, but this may be my fatigue talking. Given the amount of time writers have spent on sillier debates in the past, I really shouldn't be surprised.)

But I did want to address a related topic: the time it takes to write stories, discussed also over at wendigomountain's place. With the critical caveat that this is just me. Writers are a varied, varied lot, and what you are reading here probably does not apply to most other writers – if it even applies to any other writers. To take a few of my stories from this year, not quite at random:

Colors – flash, writing time, two hours, probably less. No editing (what you see is the first and only draft). Written in a blind fury. Mentioned by several of you as a favorite.

On the Edge of Breathing – flash, writing time, five hours, plus some editing afterwards. This was about my fifth take on the "underworld bride" saga, and by this time, I knew more or less what I wanted to say.

Transport – flash, believe it or not, seven months, and even then, the editor kindly pointed out that two paragraphs were just pointless and needed to be removed as swiftly as possible for the long term safety of readers. (This sort of thing is why we have editors.)

Gravestones – short, two years. Seriously. I couldn't find the ending. The route to publication was even longer. (Incidentally, although it finally saw publication this year, this is one of my earlier pieces.

Pogo Stick – I didn't even know this was a story when I wrote it; one or two hours later, I had a finished tale. An experimental piece where I found the end when I got there. (I was as surprised as all of you when the pogo stick jumped in.)

The Otter– one of the first of the underworld/monster bride tales; five weeks, again because I was searching for the ending.

Wooden Apologies – short, one day. This piece, however, was odd in the sense that it was just a transcription of the dream I'd had the night before. The problem was deciding whether or not to just leave it that way.

Playing With Spades" Months. I started this story while at the Mayo Clinic and had to put it aside for various reasons. When I picked it up, I initially gave it the wrong ending, and only later found the right one.

What can we learn from this?

Well, for one thing, although I can write quickly, I don't consistently write quickly. And my writing speed follows absolutely no pattern whatsoever – although as I'll discuss in another post about novels/epic poems, it's absolutely impacted by my health. But that's a separate conversation (and one reason why I focused on flash pieces above.)

For instance, of the three most personal stories this year – "Colors," "Pogo Stick," and "Playing With Spades," two were written swiftly; the third….not so much. Knowing the ending in advance usually speeds things up – but "Planting," where I knew exactly where I was going, still took time (although if I recall correctly that was more of real life/health interfering). And sometimes, yes, it can take me years to finish a story – twiddling here and there and everywhere. There's another issue as well – deadlines; if I know I have one, I twitch more and focus more. Stories without that deadline lack that external push.

This holds true for longer works, as well. Parts of From Immortal Shadows Singing (see, not only am I hinting at this, but you now get a very tentative title) flowed remarkably quickly, parts….distinctly did not, complicated by the not so slight problem that I did not actually start focusing on this to the near exclusion of all other works until mid-November. I am at the stage of checking, checking, filling out the gaps, working the ending, which for me is slower work, all in hopes of shooting out query letters sometime in January.

(Incidentally, this, and two other longer projects, are why I expect my publication pace will be slowing next year. I've been shifting back and forth between the three, with the result that I just have not been in short story mode. This may change once From Immortal Shadows Singing is finished.)

And, well, unlike many writers, I don't have a particular writing process – it shifts and changes for every story every project. Perhaps developing one might make me a more efficient writer – but it might rob me of the unexpected results.

And why would I want that?

***********

With that said, an early holiday present of a coldecho has arrived! So off for a bit.

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This week, the Oz blog returns to chattering about fairy tales, poverty and Darth Vader in a discussion of Rinkitink in Oz. Enjoy!

I just discovered a free resource through North Florida Regional Medical Center: Consult-A-Nurse; ask about symptoms, etc, from a registered nurse. A good alternative to going to (or finding) a doctor for something you're not sure about the severity of. 1-800-611-6913.

Thought I would share.

I'm running Lucid as of last night and I'm having the same problem i had in karmic, which is my linksys wireless usb card.

It's a WUSB54GC. Anyone have a good workaround or fix for karmic? If so, I might be able to duplicate it in lucid (though no promises since it's in beta, but the box it's in isn't important, so I figured I might as well do something useful while upgrading and submit bug reports and the like).

As for details, the card is showing is iwconfig as wlan0, but is not associated with any access point (which seems to be the main sticking point for others as well, after googling). lsusb shows the device listed and recognized.

http://file770.com/?p=2490

“If you or anyone you know would be interested in Babylon 5 ‘jumpgate’ pins,” writes faned Linda Bushyager, “A friend of mine, Elana Kestrel, has Stage 4 cancer and is selling these high quality pins to raise funds. She really can use the money.”

When Babylon 5 was in first run Kestrel used B5 fans’ ASCII “jumpgate” symbol to create a great collector’s item. The show’s creator, J. Michael Straczynski, praised the pin design:

JMS liked my handiwork, saying in email on October 29, 1995 that, “…it’s quite nice. By all means, good luck, looks terrific.” It is great to know that this Pin had passed THE most difficult quality test possible within the B5 fan world.

Now the artist needs financial help to keep fighting cancer:

In June 2007, your pin artist was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was treated in Portland, Oregon just before I moved to Southern Nevada. Now, two years later, the cancer is back and has spread to the liver. I am at Stage 4. There is no Stage 5. The tumor is showing signs of being under control, and with your help, it can stay that way…

Times are tough. I am having trouble affording proper food, medicine, basic living expenses and get the car’s brakes fixed so that I can safely go to chemotherapy.

I have decided to turn to the B5 community for help. My goal: sell out the rest of my pin inventory before Christmas so that I can have funds to just heal without worrying about covering the basics of life, even for just a few months.

You can see the pins online and order them today via email at Kestrel’s website — http://www.jumpgatepins.com/index.html. An online shopping cart is coming.

[Thanks to Linda Bushyager for the story.]

PS. I have several of her pins and they are Gorgeous - Auntie M <*>

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Okay, i am getting lost on forums and inside google and you folks always seem to help. (Before I ask my question, though, I offer a resounding THANK YOU!!!! to all the help i've never acknowledged from here!)
I have set up a LAMP server that runs fine except for sending out emails from the server and forums. I don't want an email server (yet) just to have it send notifications. Treat this as a blank install and tell me what works best for you: postfix, sendmail, phpmail or what.

It is ubuntu server 8.04

Blue Cabled Soap Sweater
Originally uploaded by caligatia

This yarn is really hard to photograph. There's a six-stitch cable going straight up the front. Pattern is improvised. Yarn is Patons Classic Wool. Soap is Hanks Goat's Milk in "Fresh Bread."

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out. It fits the soap perfectly. When I got to the part at the top where I was ready to decrease I put in the soap and knitted around it -- difficult, but well worth the effort.

Tomorrow I have to go back to Hanks (oh darn) and exchange one of the bars I bought, because I accidentally picked up a bar shaped like a sheep. It would be very hard to knit a sheep-shaped soap sweater (say THAT three times fast) and I'm not about to try.

My sister is coming into town from Arizona and will possibly flip out if we don't do every graduation-related thing happening around town on Saturday (to her credit, she's awesome and it's a huge deal to her even though no one else in my family will be attending... and they're in state)

only... i didn't find a single thing on the UF website and the alligator, which would be my back up resource, isn't being published until spring semester. i'm going to go look at the gainesville sun now, but does anyone know of any kind of graduation traditions that happen in gainesville at the end of each semester?

thanks!

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Get to know My Guests. Want to know who's checking you out? You can now view the 100 most recent, logged-in users who visited your journal during the past 30-day period with My Guests. For those who prefer to fly under the radar, you can update your My Guests privacy setting here.

Introducing My Stats. If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now see detailed reports on how many people are visiting your journal, friends pages, and entries (wherever they're posted on LiveJournal). You can also view data on comments and RSS requests. My Stats is only available to Paid and Permanent account holders, but you can upgrade anytime. (FYI, an annual subscription costs less than a large pizza with everything on it, PLUS it's rumored to make you lose weight in your sleep!) For additional details on this feature, read this article in paidmembers.

Get ready to check your vital statistics!. To begin, mouse over Journal in the upper nav bar and select My Stats from the dropdown menu (Horizon) or select My Stats under Journal in the side bar (Vertigo). If you're using another design scheme, you can visit My Stats directly. You'll find My Guests on the My Stats tool bar.

Happy holiday promotion!

We're delighted to tell you about our holiday coupons, which will help you share the love with your LiveJournal friends! If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send up to 10 LiveJournal Basic/Plus users a $10 coupon for an annual paid subscription now through January 15th, 2010. Recipients can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). Please note that these coupons are not transferable and cannot be used to renew existing paid accounts. If you're a Paid/Permanent user, you can send out your holiday coupons now!

Tweaks and Enhancements

1. The search is on: We've replaced our default search tool with one from Yandex, a leader in search engine technology. This means you'll get smarter, more granular results! To get started, enter your search terms and click the Go button to the left of the Find box on the upper right of the LiveJournal header. This will take you to the search landing page where you can further refine by Entries, Comments, People & communities, and FAQs. You can also access the search page directly.
2. Whitelisting: We've released a new option to help you moderate your busy communities more efficiently. If an entry contains a link to a whitelisted (i.e., trusted) site, it will be posted automatically without need for moderator approval. If a post contains a link that is not on the whitelist, you'll be prompted to approve. To access this option, please visit settings for any community you maintain and select the third option in the Community Moderation box (located in the lower left-hand corner). Click the enable link to custom-edit your community's whitelist, which has been prepopulated with trusted domains. You can manually add or delete URLs in the text box. Please note: If you're the maintainer of an unmoderated community, you may see the radio button for this setting checked, even though it's not active. This is a known issue. Please select whichever option you prefer and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. If you're happy with your current settings, then no need to do anything!
3. TMI, dude: We've added some fun FREE sponsored vgifts! You can send up to 50 TMI vgifts to mutual friends (btw, you cannot send free vgifts to communities). If you're a Paid/Permanent user and you want to view sponsored gifts, click Show sponsored gifts on your homepage or visit the sponsored gift page. These vgifts will only be available through Wednesday, December 23rd.

You can view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Until next time, stay snug!

Statistics are here!

You can now see the number of people who have visited your journal, your individual entries, a chart of comments, readers of the RSS feed of your journal, and the last 100 logged-in users who have visited your journal directly (if you've enabled My Guests).

Things you should know:
-Stats are completely anonymous (only My Guests is tied to username); only numbers are recorded, not any other information
-The times and dates in the graph are based on server time, which is UTC/GMT
-The light grey number at the top left corner of the graph is the statistical outlier
-While the graph may go back in time to this summer, the stats-gathering server was not on constantly, so previous stats may be missing. Today, and going forward, full stats are collected and displayed.
-If you opt out of My Guests (meaning that your username will not show up on other people's reports and you will not be able to view your My Guests tab), it does not affect your use of the rest of the Stats - if you're a Paid or Permanent user, you'll still be able to see all the rest of the information on this feature

( Page-by-page walkthrough )

If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now send 10 of your non-Paid friends a $10 coupon. Your friend will be able to purchase a Paid Account for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25).

• All Paid and Permanent accounts can send out the coupons by clicking here (it's also under Friends -> Holiday promotion in the site header)
• You can also send to people not on your Friends list by manually entering the username in the field provided
• If your friend declines the invitation, it will be returned to your available invitation pool and you'll be able to send to someone else
• You can send the invitations until January 15th

There's quite a lot in this one - here are the details:

**Gift a $10 coupon
All Paid users will be able to invite 10 friends to purchase a Paid Account with a $10 discount. This can be found in the header under Friends -> Holiday promotion

**Journal Statistics
Journal Statistics and My Guests have arrived! They can be found in the header under Journal -> My Stats: Full Statistics are reserved for Paid users and My Guests are for everyone!

**New community moderation setting
Maintainers of communities which allow unmoderated posting can now choose to moderate only entries containing links to non-whitelisted domains. The new setting (if you're the maintainer of a community) can be found at Manage Communities -> Settings -> Community Moderation. The whitelist for the community is pre-populated with "trusted" sites, and the maintainer can add and manage the list as well.


**Free Sponsored v-gifts
For one week (December 16-23rd), a selection of free v-gifts will be available. Since they're from a Sponsor (3M TMI App), only Basic and Plus users will see it in the v-gift store. Paid and Permanent users can find it by clicking here.

Bugfixes and other changes:

• New holiday header!
• The new text search is now the default link in the header
• Scrapbook status should now correctly follow journal status when a journal is deleted, purged, or suspended (LJSV-693)
• When switching from the HTML editor to the Rich Text editor the cursor now stays where it was (LJSV-487)
• Firefox spellcheck (and all browser-native context menus) now work in the RTE (LJSV-571)
• The RTE no longer inserts extra list items when an lj-cut is placed (LJSV-583)
• The pop-up item "Type your cut contents here" once again appears when the lj-cut function is used before highlight text to go under the cut (LJSV-792)
• Added language-stripping to the HTML Post an Entry form (LJSV-301)
• Long entries now display properly in A Novel Conundrum style (LJSV-623)
• Indentations and spaces now work as expected in the RTE (LJSV-797)
• Problems between Safari and the RTE have been fixed (LJSV-648)
• Added support for internal tagging of Support Requests (LJSV-790)
• The Rich Text Editor has been language-stripped for translation (LJSV-830)
• The initial setup for TxtLJ now happens on the TxtLJ setup page (subsequent changes can then be made on the Mobile settings page)
• Implemented referer check in the mogupic script - thank you, DW! (LJSV-500/DW-888)

Known Issue: Maintainers of unmoderated communities may see the radio button for the new community moderation setting checked. However, it is not on by default; this is a bug. The moderation settings will remain unchanged until the Maintainer clicks "Save changes".

I am very, very sorry to tell you that some knitters are now using THEM as a symbol.

Thanks to simplykathryn for the link.

What's special about Xandros?

http://www.xandros.com/products/desktop/

It looks like every other Linux desktop I've seen out there, but Xandros cost $99. So what's special about it?

I'm sure everyone remembers that little song the telepaths sang through the fifth season. What I want to know is, does that song exist outside of Babylon 5? If so, does anyone know the title?

Hello,

Does anyone happen to know of dictionary/thesaurus programs for Linux? I require programs that does not rely on internet searches because I have a limited connectivity online. I happen to like the dictionary/thesaurus feature on Encarta programs so if there's any Linux-compatible like that, I would prefer them.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks. :)

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I have hypothyroidism and was on Synthroid but have recently stopped it because I was afraid it was causing some of my problems/reactions. I have read that Synthroid cannot be gauranteed to be gluten free, but that it probably is? Anyone here with hypothyroidism that take Synthroid and do fine on it?

I will be speaking to my doctor soon after my thyroid tests come back and we are either putting me back on Synthroid or starting a new thyroid medication. Is there a list of *for sure* gluten free thyroid medications?

I'm just curious of those of you out there who do take Synthroid and are fine with it and have no problems with it or those of you who don't take it but take a different thyroid med?

Thanks!

Upper body:
15 lb dumbbells, 3 sets. Need to get some more plates from the store.
Lat Pulls / Shoulder Press, superset. 8 reps.
20 lb dumbbells, 3 sets. Chest Press, 10 reps.
Martial arts combos: Jab/punch, Jab/uppercut, Jab/body punch. Mixed up for 5 minutes.
Stretched for 3 minutes.

I sort of finished a second soap sweater while at Mom's this evening. Rather, I knitted the length I think I need, but I can't say for sure until I buy handmade soap at Hanks tomorrow. I also got the heel and 3/4 of the leg of Easter Sock #2 done over the course of the day. Plus the first soap sweater, which for some reason Flickr isn't posting here. So here it is:



The soap is Amber Blackberry with Sal Butter from Stinky Lewis Soaps, a local soap maker. The yarn is Patons Classic Wool. The pattern is the basketweave version of this. The second sweater, the almost-done one, is the cabled version. I figure I'll make one each of the three patterns for my mother-in-law, and then if I'm not sick of knitting them by then I'll make a set of three for Mom. (I already gave her the red one I made this afternoon. She intends to use it in her morning shower. I told her to report back to me on her thoughts about it.)

And my hands don't hurt! Yay!

My husband and I were trying to figure out what to get his little sister for Christmas (she is 2) and his dad told him that she is having trouble holding crayons without breaking them - he heard that they make crayon holders to help them color - but I cannot find them! does anyone know what he is talking about? also, if you have purchased a holder for your little ones...do they like it?!

EDIT: ALSO... I know this is so the wrong place to ask this, but I recently bought a car (scion xB if it matters) that came with 18" rims and low profile tires and I was wanting to sell them and buy stock-sized wheels (usually 15") - but I posted them on craigslist and it was a no go - I spoke to someone at pepboys and they were saying I should look into seeing if anyone would want to work out some a trade situation - their regular size wheels for my 18s - and I figured this would be a decent place to start since I have NO idea where to post this situation! any suggestions?

The year is 2009 (almost 2010) and Linux still appears to have the "device already in use" problem it's had since day one.

Specifically with respect to audio devices.

If I launch my game (COH under Crossover) the audio works perfect.

If I launch Skype alone - the audio works perfect.

But if I launch Skype and start a conversation, and then launch my game, I get NO SOUND in my game.

And If I launch the game first and the Skype, I get no sound from Skype.

I've tried to open the System > Preferences > Sound and try different mixers but nothing seems to work...

any help?

Update: I think I found the problem:

"There is no sound in my application running in Crossover.

Ubuntu 8.04 uses the PulseAudio backend, which isn't entirely compatible with Wine yet, and sometimes doesn't like Crossover. If you switch the OS back to using ALSA you should have audio restored to your Crossover apps. " [source: Codeweavers support wiki ]

Update 2: How to switch back to ALSA

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-820305.html

Update 3: Skype faq

I also found this helpful-> http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=10858

Update 4: Skype version 2.0
I found this old download link for Skype version 2.0 for Debian (should work for Ubuntu) which was the last version they released that used ALSA before switching to PulseAudio.

http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-debian_2.0.0.72-1_i386.deb

Hopefully that will fix my problem.

Three problems I am having with my tank:
blackish hair algae
snails
Hydra.

Now I plan to order some Red Claw Shrimp when I return from NY. I know the shrimp will get rid of the snails. Will they eat the algae and hydra or will I have to go a different route for those 2?

I have Nerite snails that have gotten rid of everything but the hair algae.

I rm'ed a bunch of files from a SD card, then decided I wanted them back. I haven't written anything to the card since. Right now I'm saving an image of the card:

$ sudo dd if=/dev/sdc of=sdcard.img

I'm planning to mount a copy of that image as a loopback fs and mess with it. But from there, I have no idea what I'm doing. Any pointers?

Hi all,

I have an aquarium that was dumped on me by my brother about 10 months ago. Despite knowing nothing about fish, I seem to have done alright with it during this time. The original fish that my brother had in there were 5 little rummy nose tetra's. I added three platies (one jumped out when a friend was looking after it for me though) three danio's, one bristlenose and a silver dollar. Yes I know- silver dollar was a bad choice (I've been advised by many people on this forum) but the aquarium guy who sold it to me didn't tell me that they get huge & I haven't had any luck trying to get him to a new home, so he's stuck in there.

Anyway, I went overseas at the end of September and have only just got home. My Dad was looking after the tank during that time. Well last week when I got home I noticed that there were only 4 tetra's swimming about. I finally found the 5th poor little guy who had died and was stuck up against the filter. We weren't sure why he died but as Mum pointed out, maybe it was just old since my brother had already had the tetra's for several years. Well a few days later I noticed only 3 little tetra's swimming around... no sign of the 4th although I did spot something silvery on the log in the tank which could have been a part of the poor guy (I assume the others may have eaten the body?).

Well today I was just watching the fish and I noticed that one of my platies was stuck against the filter. It was still alive cos I could see it's fins flapping a bit, so I quickly turned the filter off for a second so he could get away. I then observed him for a bit and he kind of sank down to the bottom of the tank and didn't move. I checked the PH level, it's at about 7.2 so I decided to do a partial water change and try and get the PH down a bit. I've also added some medicine that my brother gave me with the tank although I think it's mainly for fin rot. I've watched the platy for a bit and I'm wondering if he has dropsy? I don't really know anything about fish/fish diseases but through reading a bit it does sound like dropsy. He's not really swimming, just floating along with the current made by the filter, but he's floating at a weird angle, like his belly is floating and he's kind of twisted on his side. I feel really sorry for the poor little guy but I don't know what I can do to help it? I'm assuming that he'll probably die soon.... is there anything at all that I can do to help, or anything that might ease it's suffering at all?

Also, what on earth could be wrong with the tank? I don't know how I successfully managed to keep them for so long without problems and now after only 3 months all the fish are dying. I did notice a snail in the tank (my brother told me that snails are bad?) but I can't find it again to get it out. Are all the fish going to die?

Hoping for some good advice!!!
PS if anyone on here is from Sydney, Australia & would like another fish tank, please let me know because I may be going overseas again possibly for a long time & my parents really can't look after the fish (clearly!!).

Thanks!