Cabin Fever Craft Kit Roundup!

Seeing as my newfound madness for all things polymer clay has helped to cure my cabin fever woes, I thought that this week I would look for some other good things to cure cabin fever with! So without further ado, here are four awesome (green for St. Patty's) kits from Etsy!

• For those seamstresses out there who want something new to put on the sewing machine, here is a Twirly Swirly Ruffled Swing Top for your little girl from Littlefishbigpond. It has everything but the sewing machine and thread. And such cute green fabric, pre-cut, of course, for maximum convinience.

• Speaking of kiddos, get yours involved in the crafting, by having them help you. Make a festive Green Paper Chain for your St. Patrick's Day decorations with this hip kit from CrownPaperie!

• Keep warm at the St. Pat's Parade with this awesome warm Felted Scarf Kit from Etsy seller Kallerin. The kit uses Shetland yarn. Needles not provided.

• And last but not least, 10eisha brings us this Green Dotted Birdcage Veil Kit for doing it up in style at all the holiday parties! How could anyone not love such a fabulous accesory?!

That pretty much wraps it up for this week. Please pick up something to do during the long grey days of winter. We don't want winter to be a scene from the Shining. Be sure to check out some polymer art in my shop here and here. Also check us out in today's edition of the Journal and Courier.

Work as Usual

Busy weekend! Sorry for the day delay in updates, but I have been a workin' mama the past few days! Kyle and I are working on our collaborative art project for the gallery show in April, Kyle and I are collaborating with Annarae on some tech for her masters thesis project.

Yesterday we had lunch together at Anna's house and beforehand we made a bunch of origami stuff for a hostess gift. Look at the star I made!!! It was wonderful and lunch was a blast. (A+++ Would eat from again)

As if that weren't enough I taught Kyle crochet so that we can do some soft graffiti together. If you're in Lafayette, you should check out our first piece in person. I have loved soft graffiti since I first saw it three years ago on the Masquerade Blog. (So awesome!!) Kyle has been enthralled with it too, so we picked up some things at the craft store, and had a crochet lesson. Many thanks to Angela at the Lala Gallery for kindly giving us the site for our installation.

Last night Angela came over and we made polymer clay beads and pendants for an upcoming piece in the Journal and Courier on overcoming cabin fever. (for sale on Etsy later this week!) We went on a giant texture hunt throughout my entire house.

When you really look, it is amazing how much texture we have in our daily lives. It sort of reminded me of something out of The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks. In the book he talks about people who are born with no ability to see color, and how without that distraction they can see textures so rich that are practically invisible to the color seeing eye. Once you start to look for it, it is amazing how much texture there is in your life.

So we made polymer clay jewelry! I managed to dig up some suggested techniques from an old copy of Bead and Button Magazine which helped us tremendously. A few pointers from our toils of last night:

1. Use playing cards to control the thickness of the clay you are rolling out. 6 to 8 cards on each side of the clay offer a fairly stable consistent thickness.
   

1. You don't need a fancy rolling tool. We used an ink pen and it worked just fine.
2. Texture is FABULOUS! If it's hard to see, don't worry. We applied washes of acrylic paint to the finished projects before sealing them.
3. Be sure that your clay is all the way set and cool from the oven before you finish detailing and sealing it.

Past that there are some great tutorials out there. Good luck and have fun!

My Inspiration - Sixties Interiors

One of the places I pull a major part of my asthetic from is 60's/70's era interior design. Whether it is weirdly wonderful, or just plain weird, I'll take it all. I have always really adored that sort of feel in interiors. My grandmother decorated with wild lamps and big owls from that time period in her fabulous mish of a house.

James Lileks is probably the first place that really focused and put into words the wonderful wonkyness for me with his Interior Desecrations, a wonderful foray into the world of, "What in the HELL were they thinking?" He even wrote a book on the topic available at Amazon.

I look and look for books of interior design from that era. You can buy some repurposed at my Etsy shop in the form of Regrettable Design Cards.

I also love the DIY Crafting movement of that era. I am forever looking for more and more unique crafting books. (I occasionally come off of some of my stash.) They just have such a wide and great variety of projects and ideas in them that keep me pushing my skill set outwards and upwards.

Sorry for the late update this week. Stuff is starting to get crazy busy now that I'm seriously buckling down on getting paintings done for the gallery show in April. (That's next month, yo.)

SPECIAL!!!

So for this week's post, I am announcing my first ever featured item sale on Etsy! I sew a ton, and sometimes I custom make notions to fix some issue or other that I have.

That's what I did with the item I am featuring is the Needle Roll. I made it because pincushions just don't work for me. I travel a lot, and I basically need a traveling workshop. Needles were always sliding out of pincushions, or getting lost inside of them. I quit using them and started sliding them into the fabric in part of my sewing bag, but they would stab me.

Because of that, I started making these needle rolls. I LOVE mine! It keeps all my needles organized by size and purpose, and they don't get dull, bent, lost or stabby.

Until March 1, they are on sale for $2 at my shop, or free with any purchase over $10. Enjoy.

Great Glass Roundup.

Since I was so inspired by the Chihuly exhibit last weekend, I decided to share. Here are five pieces from ten sellers that I feel channel the colors, forms and spirit of what I felt at the conservatory.

First up is this gorgeous aqua hummingbird feeder from Etsy seller Glorious Glass Garden. The colors in this shop are so vibrant, and the outdoor nature of the brilliant glass is a win-win.

Remson Glass Works has a gorgeous hand blown ruffle edged bowl that evokes images of Chihuly's Macchia.

Chihuly makes some of the largest glass floats in the world. Scale them to fit in your home with a Blown Glass Oregon Coast Sea Float from Oberini.

Use glass to mimic the forms of nature by adding a fiddlestick from Glass Garden NW to your garden. Bright and beautiful!

Add some Venetian style with an abstract handled vase hand blown by undefined art.

These are just some of the awesome glass to be found on Etsy. It's amazing to see what a true craftsperson can do.

Belated Family Christmas with Chihuly.

So, we apparently have belated Christmas on a regular basis in our family. This weekend served as our get-together, and get together we did in Columbus, OH at the Franklin Park Conservatory, where they are having an exhibit in the gardens called "Chihuly Re imagined."

I've been boning up on Chihuly for just this occasion, as I wanted to be super familiar with his stuff before we went. I like to do that so I can appreciate more of the work that goes into creating what I am in the presence of. If you want to get a good eye for the work that he does, I suggest the book Chihuly: 365 Days. In that book, he said something that caught my eye and really got me going. Something I needed to see.

"Now the issue of what I am - am I a craftsman? Am I a designer? an artist? Or just what am I? This issue is much less important to me today. To be really honest, I don't' care what they call me or my work, as long as they look at it."

Reading that makes me feel better, and somewhat less marginalized with some of the comments concerning the upcoming gallery show. (this just in - Kyle and I are having a gallery show in April. Do come.)

Anyways, the glass was amazing, as was the conservatory. All and all, we had a wonderful get together. Enjoy the pictures!

Man oh Man Have I been Busy!

Just putting up some quick shots of a baby gift I made as a custom order. A baby blanket and three bibs for a little girl named Emerson.

Working on getting new product made for my Etsy, custom orders, and Christmas presents.

Done Making Baby Stuff At Long Last

I would just like to say that it really does take a whole weekend to put together a really fantastic baby gift.

I present to you the "Pile for Nichole." Kyle's half sister who is having her first girl sometime in the incredibly near future. (It will be a small miracle if this stuff gets there before the baby.)

The contents of her package, all handmade are as follows:

• 6 Bibs
• 5 Onsies
• 4 Burp cloths
• 2 Wrap shirts
• 1 Baby Bonnet

I should have made three of something, just so I could have a numbered list. Except that I am now done making baby stuff for a long, long time.

Come See What I've Been Doing!

So for about the past month, I've been sewing up a storm and working on the grand re-launch of my Etsy store! That's right! Super-sweet awesome news for those of you who don't get into downtown very often and want to check out or buy my stuff! For those of you who don't know, Etsy is a place for buying and selling handmade goods.

I have a ton of new product, and new product ideas. Today I started making ties. Really nice, hand stitched numbers. They've been coming out better than I could ever have hoped. The one on the left is the try-it-out tie in fabric that I really can't find people who care about what happens to it. Hopefully I'll have a bunch of them up on Etsy this week.

I am also ever-hopeful that Kyle will make and put up some robots and/or vintage electronics. Our plan is for the space on Etsy to be for both of us. I'm working on finishing a new graphic for it this weekend that has both of us. I am also hopeful that Kyle can get my blog up and running on his server. It's nice to slowly mesh your life with someone else's. Really really nice.

Today is my first ever feature on Etsy, and it is for my handmade cards. Pictured at right is the image off of one of my Rainbow of Regrettable Design cards. They are in various color packs, four cards each, with images from the 1967 Better Homes and Gardens Interior Design Book. (A Goodwill Find) They are awful, and I love them. I have to be honest though, I made so many cards getting ready for this that I really don't care to ever make them again. I'm on to ties now, until the same thing happens, and/or we get a new Apron Show, which is a distinct possibility later this summer.

206 Railroad

Kyle and I went out adventuring this weekend, and after a long absence I finally updated Abandoned Indiana with some of my photographs.

Pictured is a deteriorating house in Battleground. Enjoy!

Links of Utility!

I would just like to begin this post by posing that the lip balm I bought last week out of necessity is quite a lot like kissing a smoker when you put it on. It's PepsiCo's Aquafina branded lip balm distributed by Added Extras, LLC. I will qualify that statement by saying that branding lip balm off of bottled water is in it's self strange. I mean, what flavor do you really expect it to have? I maintain, however that it both tastes and smells like someone with a pack-a-day habit. Gross.

Anyways - on to the important stuff! The reason I'm throwing this up slapdash on a Wednesday afternoon. POLITICS! (dunn dunn dunnnn!) For those of you who are Indiana residents, there is a state-level judicial election this year, and before you go off to the polls and just blindly pick who wins and looses, take a moment to think.

There are three Indiana Supreme Court judges, one Indiana Apellate Court judge and one Indiana Tax Court judge up for election/re-election. The state stuck together a nice page (file cabineted rather amusingly under "retention.") for biographies and listings of both majority and minority opinions of these five seated judges. That way you can find out if you want to vote for or against keeping them. The retention site is located here: In.Gov/Judiciary/Retention.

These judges are appointed, so keep in mind that voting to oust them means that 'our man Mitch' (my asshat of the year for 2004) gets to appoint someone! Just as a point of reference, three of the judges up for election were appointed by Former Govenor Orr (r) and the remaining two were appointed by Former Govenor Bayh (d).

And if I haven't said it already, which I don't think I have, go out on November 4, and VOTE, DAMN YOU!

Octoberfest Make'N'Take!

Today was Octoberfest in Lafayette! It's the second year for this festival, and it's also my second year doing a fall themed make'n'take craft at the shop.

Last year we made baby jack-o-lanerns out of oranges, one of the projects in the FABULOUS book Making Stuff - an Alternative Craft Book. They were super cute, and also a super fiasco. Make'n'take needs to be quick, and fairly un-messy, and it took between ten and twenty minutes to hollow out an orange.

This year, I found a great tutorial for making paper pumpkin ornaments. We cut paper for thirty of them last night, but when I did a trial run, it looked like an onion! With a few quick adjustments, suggested by Betsy, we were on our way.

We went through the entire first set of thirty ornaments in three hours! I cut out twenty-four more pumpkins, and we used all but the last couple. It was a really great day, and for just the second year, it was a really great festival!

Here's an action shot of my last group of little crafters. I really think we went from total failure to zen master in one year on the fall make'n'take.
There

Talk of Art

I seem to be remiss in mentioning what I'm up to.

I'm working on a few art projects right now.

"Candid Conversations" are going to be a set of embroidered pillows hopefully showing in a local gallery sometime soon.

"Vision Quest" is me working on painting that which I see without my glasses - harder than you would think.

"Buildings Without" are painted photographs I have taken of abandoned buildings.

Those are the things I've been working on lately. Hopefully someday I will manage to finish them.

What Dreams May Come

Yesterday Mel gave me the biggest thing I have heard yet this year. If I can make it viable, if I can pull in the extra revenue to make it possible for Blue Monday to have an employee, she will hire me full time at the shop.

The minute she said that, everything else went on the backburner. Could this be the break I was waiting for? Time will tell.

Freeganism

So gradually I seem to be gravitating towards my own brand of freeganism. I've been a sometimes dumpster diver for a while now, and was recently turned on to wild foods.

The property I live on has two kinds of pears, tart cherries, weeping red mulberries, black raspberries, cultivated grapes, giant puffball mushrooms, and Chinese garlic. Upon discovering this bounty of unused food, I started to wonder what other things lay in wait in the world around me.

Over the weekend I picked up a Peterson's Field Guide, and a copy of 101 Trees of Indiana, both very good books. I've been working on identifying plants as potential food sources, and I hope to cut down on my consumption of pesticide-coated freight shipped foods. At this point in my life, I doubt I'll ever buy jam again.

I'm hosting local foods night on the 19th, and you don't have to gather your own, just buy it local, and make it yourself and come on over for some Indiana wine and fresh local foods. (P.S., Bring wine)

Yet another reason I'm someone you should make friends with before the apocalypse happens.

It's an Enormous Backlog!

Moby's Tomatohol Car. Achewood. A Timely(?) comic from a story arc that ended abruptly to my great dispair. Also - I would just like to state for the record that it is nigh on impossible to find a non-ridiculous photo of a bloody mary on GIS. Also - why the hell would anyone put a pickle in a bloody mary?

= Death. Dorothy Gambrel's Photo Stream. Sometimes, there's no other way to get your point across.

The Cold Hard Facts of Life. Very Small Array. As long as I'm putting up brilliance from Dorothy I should stick this in.

Guess Who. Cat and Girl. Hmm... could it be more Dorothy? Why yes, yes I think it is.

Honey, See If The Man from Child Protective Services Would Like a Piece. The Sneeze. Well, I have to say, I was stunned the second I saw the picture.

Pay Your Uncle Pete to ask You to Be an Assasin Day. Girls Are Pretty. I am sad to say that I always missed this holiday when growing up. Had this happened at work yesterday, though, it would have been the best day of my life.

D Listed Decor. c/o Craigslist. This site just basically writes it's self.

3191. Now on to the book of evenings.

Still Life Attributes Kit. The Ornamented Table. Basically, I just want a porcelain skull.

Tea Revives You. Keep Calm and Carry On. Nice Print.

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Recession. Salon (source link ommitted, damn you). Much as I hate linking to sites like Salon, I can't help but love Heather. An excerpt, "Sept. 11 was supposed to make us all more down-to-earth and more honorable -- you know, the way World War II traumatized the so-called Greatest Generation enough to put down the bottle and stop beating up the little Mrs.? We were supposed to choose valiant, heartfelt, courageous paths, to give of ourselves like never before, to come together as a nation. Instead, most of us have spent the last seven years monitoring Nicole Richie's eating disorder."

I have more, but there are really so many posts of archived blog-life from January people can read in one day.

Life and Love in the Fast Lane

My life seems to have taken off. After getting out of my last apartment, I have found a place to truly call home. I had the brilliant idea of hiring an unpaid assistant, who turned out to be someone worth sharing my life with, and of course I am becoming more established in the local art community by the day.

I'm going to try and make a rare Friday Freeday post this week. Hope you and yours are all doing well.

Announcing!

Many many moons have gone by since I have given you kind folks an update, and still you return again and again, hoping, praying. I am here to answer those hopes and prayers.

Life has become a busier place for me since moving. Projects once on the back burner have come off - new projects have materialized. Blue Monday moved down the street, and a new coffee house has opened on main street.

Also - I am getting ready to be a part of a real actual aw-shucks art show for the first time! The Apron Show opens at K.Dee's Coffee and Roasting Company this Friday.

(Free Delicious Homemade Pie if you come between seven and nine the first day. I'm just saying.)

So come out and show your support, and if you need a place to crash, my new apartment has a very reliable sofa-bed.

Why I love The "Old-School" Grocery up the Street

When I lived on 9th Street I was closest to the Payless on 18th Street driving, and for a long time that was the grocery store I went to on the rare occasions I had cause to go grocery shopping.

Then I moved to an apartment with an actual kitchen and started needing a stocked pantry. About a month ago I stumbled on the Teal Road Marsh store. A neighboring businessman told me that they had gone downhill, but I needed to get some things, and I was already there, so I stopped in.

I relished it the moment I stepped in the door. Last renovated sometime in the late sixties the store screams retro from the mortar in the brick. It is clean, and it has good prices on staples along with the sort of diverse products that Walmart could never hope to have. The thing that really got me, though - the thing that keeps me coming back is the people.

Stepping into the Marsh on Teal Road is like stepping back in time forty years. The people are not only nice, but genuine. They love that you are their customer and they exude that from their smiles to their voices. They know they have a good store, and they know that is why you are there. The department managers walk the floors in button-down shirts and ties. They bag your groceries if there are no bag-boys available. They will even have a nice chat with you if you so desire.

Suffice it to say, I have never experienced anything like it, but it makes going to the grocery during the daytime fun again.

In Regards To My Radio Silence

Recently I have experienced some changes in my life. What changes, you ask? How 'bout a new home, vehicle, second (third? fourth?) job, and potentially getting licensed.

In all of that I have weathered a few crises and spent a month plus two days just getting my phone service moved two blocks down the street. Let's not even speak of getting internet service in my new home.

Suffice it to say that this is all worth it, and once I get settled there will be no more teary-eyed complaints to anyone about what a horrid roach-infested slum I live in.

So bear with me, and remember - change is for the better sometimes.

MOVING!

In two weeks time I will officially be able to say that I survived the NHS Nightmare. After a year of living in the ghetto, next door to a filthy male psycho with bigger tits than mine, I have found a new home.

It's cute, it's clean, it's still in downtown. SECLUDED in downtown. It's also $50/mo cheaper.

So that's the story, kids, I'm moving. Expect more of the same erratic updates for a while.

Withdrawl

For the last week I've been in Monticello waiting on my car to be healed. Yesterday, I went back to spend a night at home in Lafayette, a city that I love.

I looked at an apartment in Pheasant Run out on Brady lane. It was a nice apartment - smaller than any I have ever lived in, and in an actual complex - a fairly nice one with all the amenities. I said something to Da on the way there about moving into a soul-free cement block. It was in a joking tone of voice, but the emotion ran deeper than I had expected.

Around three, I went to the shop and told Mel about my apartment find. I expected her to be happy, instead, she sat me down and told me some truth I needed to hear. "Kat, I want you to think about living outside of downtown. If you work out of town, and already have limited time in Lafayette, if everything you want to do in Lafayette is in downtown, do you really want to spend half of your limited time driving back and forth to downtown?"

"I just don't want you to get an apartment for the sake of having one."

And with that, she drove me up and down every street in the church district, where I really want to live, and we got the number for every apartment to rent in the area. Mel is pretty much the best friend you could ever have.

We got done looking for a place, and she announced her hunger. I was starving too, and while we were trying to come up with a place to eat, I realized that all I wanted was local. Lafayette is a city with more restaraunts per capita than any other in the world. About a third of those are local places, with good, unique food. We chose The Akropolis, a greek place on 26, and the air inside smelled so good I could have sustained myself on my breath alone.

After dinner, we changed and left for the Lafayette Brewing Company, where our friends, the Woodstove Flapjack Band was playing. I had a cape cod, and stood, clapping, dancing and stomping up near the stage. The band was high energy, the venue was historic. The music was amazing, and the floor projected the stomping beat up into the air. It was awesome, and a revalation. I was suffering withdrawl from the tastes and sounds of my home.

It's official, after a year and a month, Lafayette is now my home.

So I'm absent

Sewing like a maniac for Lay Flats.

See you after the festival is over.

Nuclear Power is Not Fucking Green.

Just read this post on TreeHugger. And While I applaud Ontario for cutting out the coal - this is a good an comendable thing. I just want to state for the record, once and for all, that NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT FUCKING GREEN.

What's that you say? Can I back it up? Why of course.

Water Pollution - Nuclear fusion makes the the source material HOT. I mean hell of fucking hot. In order to keep the reactor from melting (think Three Mile Island/Chernobyl), the rods of reactive material are kept in a constant bath of water.

From the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy's Website:

Nuclear power plants need large, continuous water supplies to cool nuclear fuel rods in the reactor core to prevent a catastrophic meltdown accident. They pose severe security threats and have the ability to contaminate large bodies of water in the event of accident. Nuclear plants also contribute to thermal pollution and radioactive contamination of waterways.

Hmm... Here's a question! Does the fuel in a nuclear power plant last for-evz? Oh geeze, the answer seems to be no.

Check out what Wikipedia has to say about Spent Nuclear Fuel.

The back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, mostly spent fuel rods, contains fission products that emit beta and gamma radiation, and actinides that emit alpha particles, such as uranium-234, neptunium-237, plutonium-238 and americium-241, and even sometimes some neutron emitters such as californium (Cf). These isotopes are formed in nuclear reactors.

The intact spent fuel can be disposed as radioactive waste. The US is currently planning disposal in deep geological formations, such as Yucca Mountain, where it has to be shielded and packaged to prevent its migration to mankind's immediate environment for thousands if not millions of years.

Oh yes, children - that quote from Wiki said thousands if not millions of years. I wonder... Does that mean if we use a lot of it, we'll have a nuclear waste disposal crisis on our hands?

In case you've never heard of Yucca Mountain, it's the USA's BRILLIANT GENIUS Plan to get rid of all those pesky nuclear power castoffs by burying them in volatile earthquake-prone ground that has a nice little stream running through it to wash all the radioactivity away.

But back on topic. We're talking about how clean and good for the Earth nuclear power is. Think a little radioactivity won't bug you?

Here's a little blurb that CNN had on the effects of radiation on people back in 1999.

Severe radiation damage to the immune system can cause overwhelming infections. And although nerves and the brain are most resistant to radiation, acute exposure usually results in damage to the central nervous system. High doses can kill outright.

The long-term effects of radiation exposure can include sterility, cancer and genetic damage that can be passed to children.

Can be passed on to children? Oh yes, yes it can. Doesn't that just sound like a walk in the park?

Oh, and lest we forget. The two main points of my argument - CHERNOBYL and THREE MILE ISLAND. Weren't those Just fiascos? I'm sure it will never happen again, though. Never never. We promise to be extra special careful next time. Promise and swear.

You know the old widows are headed back to Chernobyl now. They're going to die anyways. May as well die quickly around that which is familiar.

BUT NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT FUCKING GREEN, DAMNIT!

Friday Freeday I'm off Work!

Super Deluxe Edition today- I'm off work getting ready for the great yard sale tomorrow. Also, Congrats to Jackie (Pictured at right), she just had her baby shower Saturday for little Aria May, who is due from the womb in two month's time.

An Original Oz. Bibliodessy. These are some HANDSOME illustrations.

Crocs on The Escalator. Going Underground. What gets me is that most people want their mangled shoes BACK.

The Collyer Brothers. Wiki. These guys are buried in the same cemetery as Mae West.

Lay Flats Music Festival. First ever! Blue Monday will be vending (that means me!!) Stop out to hear the gang play (MMRRG, PMG, Woodstove Flapjacks, Double A Daddies etal). Some of the proceeds go to my hunny Emily and her art program at the Carey House.

Pink Martini. Not sure how I found these guys, but they're hella rad. Be sure to tune in for the streaming audio of Hey Eugene!

WebbAlert. A new podcast about that which is up in the blogosphere. Wow - two net buzzwords in one sentence. That's a record for me.

The Lad Vampire. Artists Against 419. This site leeches bandwidth from the folks who run scam banking websites for their 419 or 'Nigerian Scam' schemes by constantly reloading images from their websites. We Americans are spoiled with all the bandwidth we have to spare. These folks have to pay for theirs.

Pat is playing at the Blind Pig tonight. See poster at left, and see you there.

That is what I've got for now. Expect something special between now and Monday.

If you can't take the heat...

Don't visit me anytime soon. A heat index of 101, and my apartment is only staying a couple degrees cooler than the outside! It's so hot, and I'm so poor, that I'm drinking Lafayette City water straight from the tap - notorious for tasting of the delicious chemicals in the mighty Wabash.

I helped a Purdue student move into an apartment on upper Main yesterday, and I thought the walk back down the hill was going to kill me.

Stay cool, stay safe, and tell me what you do to keep cool without air conditioning!

The comment board is open.

Stop Spending!

I am working my way up to a spending freeze again. I just need to quit spending and take care of some stuff. Well wish me, everyone, I'm going to do my best.

Friday Freeday - Out of witty titles

Right, so - it's err Friday? Already? Awesome - that means payday and... oh crap, freeday too. Whelp, here is what I got:

Upromise. Upromise repays existing student loans now. Wooo! Not really my normal freeday fare, but I was so hyped about paying off my own debt instead of saving up for nonexistent children that I got over it pretty fast. Wanna contribute to mine? Lemme know.

A Lulu of a Loo. CNN. There is something very disturbing about the idea of a man pissing into the open belly of a blessed virgin shaped urinal.

Screenprinting. Craftgrrl. By request.

Get Well Balloon. Craigslist. I firmly maintain that Craigslist contains things better than any shitty LOLCatz-esque internet meme. If you think lolcats are the absolute pinnacle of humor and glib wit, I firmly maintain that you loose at life.

Paint By Numbers. American History. Paint by numbers is given the short end of the stick a lot, I think. You don't HAVE to follow the numbers. Mass produced art when hacked is art enough for me.

Dom Lupo. Today's Inspiration. Illustrator Dom Lupo writes to the T.I. Blog.

Honoring the Dead. Cat and Girl.

Classically Trained Hipsters. Mother Jones.

Leaving God out of 'IT'

Planned Parenthood.

I know a lot of people, and am aware that there are a lot more people out there, who read those two words and the only thing that comes to mind is abortion.

Planned Parenthood provides lots of very important services to the community that have nothing to do with abortion. They provide education and information on sexuality and reproductive health to all who might come seeking it. They fight for more than just one-sided and frankly dangerous abstinence-only health education in schools. They provide people like me with affordable reproductive health care that I would otherwise not be able to afford. However, this is all besides the point of what I'm trying to get across today, so we'll stay out of the whole Planned Parenthood good/evil debate.

The county fair is currently going on just down the street from where I live. I stopped there Tuesday to poke around and do all the normal fair stuff, including poking through the commerce tents. I had two planned stops to make while I was in the tents, one to sign the remembrance book for Lafayette's late Mayor Rhiele, and the other at Planned Parenthood.

I was raised with a sense of civic duty, and it bothers me to draw on the communities resources without giving back. I wanted to check in with PP to see if there was anything I could do to help out. While there I got engaged in an excellent conversation about the importance of information in this day and age. While I was speaking with the woman at the PP booth, another woman walked up behind me and began perusing the literature at the booth.

While the PP worker and I were talking, another woman came into the booth area and started grabbing as much of the literature as she could while the first woman started screaming at the worker and I about being baby killers. Her hysterical shrieking rose like a siren song above the voices in the crowd while her companion tried to steal or destroy as much literature as possible from the PP booth.

My only reaction to this is to wonder what the hell is wrong with these people. Sure, I'm pro-choice, and in theory, since abortion is legal, my side is winning. Even if it were the other way around, I would not commit acts of hate against pro-lifers. As much of a problem as I have with using acts of vandalism and violence to further one's cause, there is something else that disturbs me even more.

I'm sure if you read my headline you already know what my next point is going to be.

Using God's name to justify your acts.

What makes you think your cause is so holy that God will back you? God wants us to be examples unto all peoples - he wants us to go out and save the world. How is hatred and personal furtherance in any way a benefit to others? The answer is it's not.

I get this a lot at work too. Shady little people trying to use God to further their shady little deals. I don't treat the holy any different than I do the scum-ball tax evading assholes at work. In fact, if you try to use the name of God to grease my wheels in the workplace, I'm a lot more prone to squeak.

Be hateful if you want to, it's your perogative. Just do us all a favor - stop hiding behind God and be responsible for your own actions.

Craigslist Feedback

FAITHFUL COFFEE POT NEEDS NEW HOME - $2

Up for adoption is a 2-year-old blue Gevallia 10 cup coffee pot with light/dark brew control. A faithful little guy, he has served me well for the past two years.

Unfortunately, I am a cold and heartless snob. Now that I have my dear departed grandmother's percolator, I can never again drink anything other than freshly perked coffee. He sat neglected and alone, crying himself to sleep at night on the corner of the kitchen counter after she came home.

Then, I redid my kitchen, and his rarely used blue face no longer went with the decor. For the last six months he's been shut in the dark in the back of a kitchen cabinet.

This will be his last chance. I need the cabinet space he takes up to store my new blender - a shiny red birthday present of wonder and joy. If no one takes him, he will most likely die alone. A sad washed up shadow of a coffee pot put away during his prime.

Please adopt him. To be sure he has a good home, there is a $2 adoption fee.

Some scale in coffee pot, can be easily cleaned. Works flawlessly.

In response to this ad, I got my first ever feedback from Craigslist today.

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your posting about the "Faithful Coffee Pot"! Even though I don't drink coffee, I just had to write and say that this was one of the funniest postings that I have seen on craigslist in a long time. Thank you!

Sincerely,
M.D.W.

Friday Freeday Automatic Update-o-rama

Friday Freeday will be a little more succinct today, as I did a lot of cleaning out last week, and haven't had much surfing time this week.

Bayneham & Tyers. Rube Goldberg Machine.

Metroblogging NYC. Poop Flight. (This link is probably not mind safe)

Flickr. Abandoned Indiana. I started this photo pool a few months ago, and I have to say, the photographs are both amazing and beautiful. We apparently have a LOT of people in the Gary area.

Flickr. US Post Offices. This is an amazing collection of New Deal murals and frescoes in post offices around the state. The guy who runs it is incredibly knowledgeable on the topic.

Cat and Girl. I know where the red fern grows now.

In other news - Blue Monday Turned One! Help us celebrate by visiting our Etsy store.