"This function is not available now" (flash, flash, flash)

I love technology. I embrace it and find ways to incorporate it into my everyday life. But I hate it when it goes on the fritz. Our new TV (42" LCD) is not even a month old and it's already malfunctioning. Last week a message began to flash on the screen - "This function is not available now". I deduced that it had nothing to do with the satellite box. In fact, when the message flashes, the remote controls are rendered useless except for the channel guide and for changing channels. The volume control won't work, the power won't go off. At the first sign of this message, I just waited a while and it eventually went away. It happened a couple more times. Then this morning, I turned on the TV and the message began flashing immediately and has not stopped. It is very annoying. I turned off the TV on the set itself (the controls right on the TV set work fine) but now the TV will spontaneously turn itself on! To prevent this from happening, we now have to unplug the damned thing. Hmmmm.

I called the wonderful people at LG and learned that tech. support is not available to Canadians on the weekends. Only Mon. - Fri. from 7am to 9pm. I described the problem to the fellow on the phone and he said, "That sounds like there's a problem with the DSL powerboard" (whatever that is). I thanked him for his time and preliminary diagnosis and will be calling the nice people at LG again on Monday morning. I wonder what would have happened if I had lied on the phone and given him a US zip code and address? Hmmm.

I'm getting used to the flashing message. Hmmm.

A few days ago, I started to knit a water bottle caddy out of some bulky yarn I specifically purchased for the project - Scheepjes Alpine. I was zipping along quite nicely and thought I'd check what type of wool I was using. When I read the ball band I was shocked to note that there was 25% acrylic! Argh!! How could I have missed that? I knew I wanted to felt it. So I frogged it and put the yarn aside.

After Ollie was so appreciative of the mousie I knit him yesterday, I thought I'd knit him a mat for his sleeping tray. Sleeping tray? "What's that?", you ask? Well, we have a plant grow stand in our sunny breakfast area. We use it all year round. In the summer we don't use the lights on it but in the fall Skip brings in the geraniums, trims them and puts them under the lights. We also have several African violets and a few other house plants. Ollie likes to sleep under the lights because it's warm there. They're flourscent lights but they do generate a little heat. Over the years he's appropriated one of the trays we use for the plants and the last couple of years we just put an old towel in there for him to sleep on. Ollie is a very long cat so he needs to really curl up to fit in there. It occured to me I could knit him a little pad to sleep on from the Scheepjes Alpine. It would knit up quickly and would be washable. I did a little swatch to determine my stitches per inch and measured the tray to determine the width thus the number of stitches I'd have to cast on. Three hours later (including a run to the grocery store for a couple of things for dinner) Ollie had an 11" x 16" garter stitch blanket. Here it is in use.


I think he likes it.





"Thank you Mama for knitting me such a nice pad to sleep on".

Love Ollie OXOXOX
>^ . . ^<