Giggle

If you haven't bookmarked Wondermark I have no idea what you are waiting for. It's f-ing hilarious. If you're into laughing, you may also want to check out Married to the Sea, which is also hilarious, although the language and humor is rougher. A small sample:


marriedtothesea.com

77 Drummers

This the kind of thing I would love to help make happen. A collection of 77 drummers who came together to create one large musical instrument. There is no profit motive. There is no product tie in. There is no CD. There are no sponsors or celebrity talking heads. Just a cool idea. If you've ever played in a drum circle you know it can be a total blast.

The most...

Disturbing AND beautiful thing you may see today.

Taking a deep breath...

Ok, I've calmed down after my previous rant. Watching this video helped. Then I went to this site which has all kinds of pics of microcars. Sweet!

I loose...

Well it looks like we won't be at Gulf Wars this year. (GW is the third largest SCA event around) Apparently we aren't good enough. We were good enough for four years, but in a terse email we were informed that our products didn't meet with the SCA pre-1600's time frame. It is true, our most popular selling corset is a Victorian pattern. We use period colors and material styles and make matching skirts, shirts and more. They look good. Also, many women wear then under their more period garb. We do make a more period design, but it doesn't as well because it's A) Not as pretty and B) Not as comfortable to wear.

I appealed to the Autocrat (the person who is in charge of the overall event) and asked for some leeway. But he seemed to have no testicles and meekly agreed with the period nazi who is in charge of merchanting. They claim that they are 'tightening up their standards' and I wasn't the only one who was reviewed. Really? I know at least one other merchant who sells stuff out of period and they haven't been given the boot. I think I will be sending my spies out to check on this situation to see if indeed anyone else is missing this year. I really suspect the reason we weren't asked back is that we had an argument with the Merchantocrat about a sheet wall she insisted we erect behind out booth last year. It was a stupid demand and we objected but in the end gave in. I try to be as polite and accommodating as I can.

And where did that get me? Hell I'm one of the most honest merchants I know. Really. I take my business very seriously. I bought a very nice tent to do this event specifically. I built a more period portable rack last year for this event. Meanwhile merchants who buy crap from China set up in barely disguised carports. Ahhhhrg.

I love the SCA and I have many friends in it, but sometimes people get way too high and mighty. It shouldn't bother me. There are other more profitable events I could do that don't involve two weeks on the road or camping. But I AM bothered. To be frank I take it as a personal insult. We own booths at three large Renaissance Fairs but aren't good enough for this event. Bah.

Awesome Disclaimer...

Really, you need to read it for yourself.

I am old

Warning! Geek Speak ahead

So I'm playing a Half-Life Mod called Insurgency online with some pretty cool people. An Aussie, a German some froggers and some Amuricans. Great. We kick the snot out of the enemy team and do a little victory dance. Cool. The game at this point should load up another map and we should continue to crush our enemies. But the game seems to just stall. It doesn't crash. But we're all sitting there waiting. We have voice chat and begin to wonder what's up with the server.

"Da suhrvur, eet must have locked up I zink" said the German.

"They're probably running some shitty P2" chimes in some kid who sounds like he's 9.

"No," I say "It's a it's a 486 with an add on math co-processor".

There is a moment of silence.

'What ze 'el is a math co-processor?" asks the Frenchman.

"I'm sorry to admit I do" said another American.

"That's because you sir, are 39 years old I'll bet. You are I are ancient ones here. We walked the earth on 640k of ram and got our pron over 14.4 modems from BBS's. We wrote our own autoexec.bat files to load our CD-Rom and sound drivers in to HIMEM. And none of you young bastards know what the hell I'm talking about do you?".

There was much laughing.

Then the next map loaded and we prepared to crush the other team.

"That was great mate" said the Brit. "But really, what's a math co-processor?"

Hot priest on priest action...

No, not THAT kind. It seems that there's a new Ultimate Fighting Organization forming right in the Holy Land. Several different Christian faiths share responsibility for maintaining the Church where Jesus was supposedly born. When some Greek Orthadox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceiling after the X-mas day mass, the Armenians claimed the ladders encroached on their part of the church.

The result? Holy land Iron Cage match.

To let you know how stupid this conflict was 20 Palestinian police came in to stop the fight.

The Palestinians were the calm voice of reason. Awesome.

Go read the article, there are even pics! So, whose side do you think Jesus would fight on?

Happy swag day!

Yes, I got some very practical gifts. A winter Tilly hat and some thick socks. I got some books (which I always love). But I have to admit that my two favorite gifts were given to me by my sweetie. One was the Firefly ships papers I blogged about a few days ago. They're lovelier that I could have imagined. The other is a simply massive and completely impractical lock made in India I believe. It takes two keys to open. It's huge! I have NO use for it, but I love it dearly. I am already thinking about how to decorate it with brass and other gunge.

So, what neat swag did you get?

The Ho-ho-horror

This has to be one of the best claymation parodies ever. It combines Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Apocalypse Now. Really. It is a warped bit of genius.





On a side note- Back in Jr. High this film was some kind of fixation for me. I remember my friends and I had a tape recording of it and we could recite most of the movie from memory.

Greatest Nativity Play EVAR!

No really. It's painful AND it's funny.

Sweet find...

A week ago or so I visited the local Army/Navy surplus store in Oberlin. I'm looking for bits and bobs for a Steampunk costume and military surplus is sometimes a great resource. I found a cool looking map case for about $12 and a small canvas pouch for $2 that used to be used to carry hand grenades. As I was checking out I felt my Souk Sense tingle. My souk sense is like Peter Parkers Spidey sense but more practical. I don't need to know if Doc Oc is behind me, but I do need to know when something cool is nearby and for sale. That thing was a flintlock pistol sitting on a hook on the wall behind the register.

I casually asked the salesman about it and he said it wasn't real (well Duh) and some guy had traded it in or something. I asked to see it and tried to keep my composure as I checked it over. It wasn't real, but it was a very good reproduction. Made in Spain. Better than the mass produced items available at any ren fair. I had owned a nicer version a few years ago that I picked up in a trade and regrettably sold it at a Pirate event to make sure we broke even. I got $300 for it. This one wasn't near as nice but it was close. Real flint holder, solid barel, mechanism in good shape. I asked if he'd sell it.

"How much you offering?" he asked.

Tough call that, but as he knew nothing of its worth and I had nothing to loose I said "20 bucks".

"Sold" Sweet.

This picture was taken before I did any work on it. I completely disassembled it, sanded the barrel, cleaned up the firing mechanism, ground down the trigger to a smooth finish, polished the brass and treated the wood. Aside from a missing screw (which I replaced) and a cracked ramrod (invisible) it's in top form and looks great.

Achingly Beautiful

In addition to my love of paper ephemera, I have a deep love of old books and journals. So, of course any place that stockpiles them, any place that lavishly displays thousands of tomes in soaring cathedral like locals is enough to send my salivary glands into overdive. I present to you a wonderful collection of libraries I will some day have sex in around the world. Wait...what? Forget the sex part. I meant visit, libraries i will visit someday.

Courtesy of Curious Expeditions

Knees...getting...weak...

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a certain...weakness... for props and specifically paper ephemera. Maps, documents, old foreign money, deeds. Now some clever monkeys have created some awesome looking props and documents from Firefly.


There are blueprints that look just gorgeous. And the best? A set of official ships papers that are too cool to be believed. We never saw these in the show, just the leather case they were carried in, but these guys have done some awesome work in creating what should have been seen. Alas, they are $120 which is more than I can spend right now. They also look to be creating some other great looking props. If you are a Battlestar Galactica fan (and who in their right mind isn't) you might like to check out their tongue in cheek "How to spot a Cylon poster" for only $20.

Horay for Democracy!

Do they love us yet? No? Maybe we need to beat them harder.


Honestly. Is that what we've have become? Is this the America you are proud of? I want my country safe. But this is not making America safe, its destroying it.