Professional Voice Talent, Amateur Actor and Knitter

Month: March 2010

You know you make me wanna…

Twist & Shout? Yeah. I’ve been working on that pattern from the Fall 2008 issue of Knitty since the fall of 2008. I just can’t get the darned thing finished!

First off, shortly after I got the yarn, Lucy decided it would be great fun to strew the entire contents of the package around the living room floor one day while I was at work. Thank goodness I came home for lunch that day, or by the end of the day it would probably have been unsalvageable. As it is, I called in sick to work and spent the rest of the afternoon untangling yarn. I had to throw some away, but I was able to salvage most of it (spent the rest of the project picking dog hairs out of it, though).

I did finally start the project during the 08-09 winter, but kept putting it aside to work on gifts for other people. I managed to get about halfway up the back before I got to the point, weatherwise, where I no longer wished to knit.

By the time I picked it up again last fall, I had no idea where, exactly, I was in the pattern (you have to keep count on two or three different things at a time), so I ripped it out and started over. I knew I was going to have to buy more yarn to get it finished, thanks to dear Lucy, but I’m obviously a horrible judge of yarn needs. I keep getting “just one more skein” to finish the thing off, and coming to the end of it and thinking, “ok, surely just one more skein?”.

I’ve finished the five sections, pieced it together and am about halfway through the collar. But I’m at a standstill now because I’m out of yarn (again!) and knitpicks (who make this yarn), won’t have any more of this colour in stock until May!

In other projects, I have three friends having babies within the next four to six months, so I’m working on gifts now. I’m finally making the little dress from the Dale baby book that I’ve been wanting to make for so long (but my friends kept having boys!). I’m about a quarter of the way through it. For my other two friends I’m making pullovers from another Dale baby book. Unfortunately, the yarn I ordered for those got nicked off my front porch between the time it was delivered and the time I got home from work. Pisses me off! >:( When I re-order I’m going to have it sent to work.

LibriVox Funddrive Update

Note from Hugh:
Dear LibriVox supporters, friends, volunteers:

Two weeks ago we sent out a request for donations towards a $20,000 fundraising campaign. We outlined why on this post (with a number of questions answered in the comments thread). You responded with generosity, and we can now close down our campaign.

So:

Thank you!

We got to our target so quickly it warms our hearts. Not only did people donate, but this campaign also allowed many many people to express their appreciation for all the hard and wonderful work done by LibriVox volunteers.

We won’t have to talk about money again for a few years. Instead, we’ll get back to working hard to fulfill our mission, which is:

To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.

So: Thank you again.

For those curious:

Campaign Details:

We raised $23,000 from 433 donors, in 13 days, averaging $1,769 in donations from 33 people every day. We had a couple of big donors, who gave a few thousand dollars each, and many more smaller donations which all add up to: everything we asked for. Thank you again.

LibriVox Details:

This money will help support our efforts, which so far have resulted in the following:
* 3773: Total number of projects
* 3227: Number of completed projects
* 470: Number of completed non-English projects
* 31: Total number of languages
* 28: Number of languages with a completed work
* 1498: Number of completed solo projects
* 3549: Number of readers
* 3347: …who have completed something

Total recorded time: 66472509 seconds, or 2 years, 38 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes, and 37 seconds. Total of 66978 sections.

Have I said thank you? Well: thank you again! Oh, and a very special thank-you to our friends and supporters at the Internet Archive, especially Jacques and Brewster, who managed the donations for us so that we didn’t have to worry about setting up paypal accounts and all the rest.

And now, back to making free, public domain audiobooks.

All the best,

Hugh McGuire.

So thanks so much to everyone who contributed! 🙂

Tickle a what, now?

Not quite 8:30am and I’ve already filled my laugh quota for the day.

Was chatting with one of my coworkers, and the subject drifted into Hebrew words and phrases we were familiar with. He was trying to remember the “writing on the wall” from the book of Daniel, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (KJV); what came out was “many, many tickle a parson”.

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