Bluish Barn

at the farmers market!

come visit us!

and buy a metal detector, a ouija board, or a wooden duck!

YAY!!!!

Remember last fall when I talked you all into building a rocket camera from MAKE Magazine?

In celebration of Tim’s cards being featured* in Issue #10 of MAKE Magazine’s Toolbox column, I decided to post our launches online.

Keep in mind that there is no sound on these recordings (not intentional, the camera hack was quite sketchy, combined with the part where the rocket burst into flames…something happened.) Ahhh, memories. The adventure did not disappoint – from the part where Tim and Mikey were stranded in a soybean field for several hours, to my roommate Davy and I throwing basketballs at the rocket until 3 a.m. after the rocket got tangled in a tree.

But wasn’t that fun?!? Yay MAKE magazine, and yay SappyCards! Let’s make something from MAKE Issue #10 at next craft night!!

Launch #1: Random Soybean Field
Launch #2: Wheeler Park Explosion

* neighborly shameless promotion is acceptable by loose interpretation of the Golden Rule.

[UPDATE: Now the links to ringtones below actually work.]

After going through the process of transferring a few custom ringtones to my fancy new phone, I decided to use this week’s Craft Night to make some original ringtones. I got some criticism from other attendees who did more traditional “crafts”: sewing, bookmaking, collage, etc. But whatever.

I made the ringtones by ‘recycling’ old demo recordings from my seven year old Songs for Dead Blondes project. Each is part of a D-side song from the SfDB batch, songs that got shelved and weren’t ever heard by anyone except my bandmates and very close friends. I’m happy to give them new life as ringtones whose occasional off rhythms and bad notes impart a sort of human quality to such an over-digitized format. Take a listen:

These are instrumentals:

they’ve taught you well
post-whatever
weatherman
one size fits all
oh tempora oh
they’ve taught you well
hands to yourself
last one
today
today 2

These have vocals:

next please
something new
hands to yourself 2
next please 2
she’s not sleeping 2
she’s not sleeping
they’ve taught you well 2
want and will abuse

If you’re interested in having any of these bits as your ringtone (and you have a phone that can do that kind of thing), just right-click and ‘Save As’ to download and go from there.

The only stipulations are that you must use the ringtone for at least one week and that before you get rid of it (after you get sick of it or whenever) you must give it to somebody else. You could give it to as many people as you want and try to propagate it. (Good luck.) Or you could give it to one other person, with the stipulation that they give it to one other person after they’re done with it and so on, like a chain letter in the possession of only one person at a time.

goodbye bluish barn,

don’t worry, i’ll still be your girl next door from my new post around the corner.

My friend Gaurav is on a Fulbright grant in Argentina. Recently he wrote an email to some friends. I asked him if I could post it here. Gaurav writes: (more…)

Our old housemate Mikey has turned into a cartoon. Here’s cartoon Mikey coughing into a tissue, sneezing onto his shirtsleeve, and washing his hands and wearing a proud little grin on his cartoon face:

How, you ask, did Mikey turn into a cartoon? Turns out sometime last year Mikey posed for a picture for some University anti-smoking campaign. And just this week our newer housemate Christina sees a poster on campus that uses the same picture, but this time for a public health campaign called “Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases”. Here’s the picture of flesh-and-blood Mikey:

Look how they turned his “Smoking stinks” face into a “getting sick sucks” face. I guess he’s entered the U’s stock photo database in some “negative face” category. Three cheers for the designer who decided to bring Mikey to life as a cartoon.

a friend asked me what i was doing thursday and i told him: “going to the bluish barn for movies, and maybe making some soup beforehand, and there might be craft night!” he rolled his eyes:
“you guys are so wholesome!”

and if there was any question:

Some of you know about my somewhat embarassing domain-buying habit, some of you don’t.  It doesn’t matter.  Now is the time of year when I give away some domains before they expire.  Please browse the names I own below, and if you or anyone you know might want any of them, let me know by Valentine’s Day and I’ll transfer them to you for free.  (From there, GoDaddy fees are still $8/year.)

• ALITTLEOFBOTH.COM
• ATTEMPTINGTHEIMPOSSIBLE.COM
• CARRYINGTHETEAM.COM
• CIRCUMSPICE.ORG
• CRITICSRAVE.COM
• FLESHCREEP.COM
• FOLLOWSIGNS.COM
• FORHEREORTOGO.COM
• GRUNTWORK.ORG
• HOTASBLAZES.COM
• LIFTWITHTHELEGS.COM
• OLDBUDDYOLDPAL.COM
• RAMPANTTEEN.COM
• SINGLEWHAMMY.COM
• TYMBI.ORG

Thanks for looking!  You can find out more about my dorky hobby at Prefab Domains.

Times like these, I start missing old housemates.