Fan

Do you ever get the feeling that fans are watching you?


Well, they are.

They sit there, shaking their heads back and forth and heaving loooooong, disapproving sighs. You may get a little cooler because of the wind, but make no mistake. The fan is not satisfied with what you're doing. In fact, whatever you're doing, they're not a fan...

Fans are jerks.

-Mark

My Dimmer Switch

When I moved into my room, the light switch was missing the dimmer switch knob. Somebody had wrapped tape around the part of the switch the knob is supposed to attach to. I hate this kind of "fix" half-assed and ugly to boot.

Now, most normal people would go to the hardware store and guy a new dimmer switch and put it on and forget about it. Or, complain to the landlord and get HIM to buy a dimmer switch knob, and put it on.

Me? No, that would be too easy for me. So I went downstairs and made my own dimmer switch knob. I used copper sheet, brass wire I bought from the hardware store years ago, and a piece of scrap hardwood flooring that I picked up while I was in college, in case I could find a use for it later (I did).

Here's the result:

I gave the copper a nifty hammered texture. The hardwood (oak?) I finished with linseed oil I had leftover from finishing the stock on my M1A. I really like the finish linseed oil gives, it gives the wood a lovely glow and doesn't darken the wood much. You apply it by rubbing it in with your hand, which is very satisfying. It doesn't just coat the wood, it saturates the wood, so even scratches don't affect the waterproofing the oil provides. Not that this is likely to get wet, I actually really hope it doesn't , considering what it is... The brass is formed into rivets that hold the copper plate to the wood backing. Notice how the copper has begun to darken where I've touched it. I also like things that change/improve with age and that are maintainable.

Now, when I turn my light on, I can take pleasure in the light switch I have to push. Next? Well I still have some of that wood, and I need some coasters...

Hippopoteamus

The hippopoteamus lives in the slow-flowing tea rivers in Northwestern China. It floats placidly in the river, occasionally nozzling up tea when it gets too sleepy.

A group of hippopoteami is called a "party", they gather in a circle and chat about their lives while sipping the tea thats all around them.

Corkavore

The Corkavore eats cork, as its name suggests, but only cork that's been stuffed in a wine bottle. It lives in symbiosis with Homo Sapiens, frequently hitching a ride, remora-like, with its human counterparts. The most common type of human where the Corkavore can be found are servers at restaurants with liquor licenses. It also lives in kitchen drawers across North America and Europe, but the kitchen drawer isn't its preferred habitat, since the food supply is more limited.

Corkavore is also extremely talented musically, but it seldom forms bands because it spends all of its time screwing around instead of practicing.

-Mark

Surprised!

Mocha pot wasn't expecting me to take this picture. That's why he has such a surprised expression on his face. It doesn't help that he's totally wired on coffee. Maybe he should try living a less high-pressure lifestyle.

-Mark

Mr. Snuffles

Mr. Snuffles spends his time sniffing around for onions and his other allium cousins. Once he finds them, he doesn't eat them like we might, that would be disgusting and wrong. Instead they usually have extremely tedious conversations about such things as how many times they needed to dust their end-tables last month and the difficulty in selecting a new type of bathroom air freshener when the kind they like is discontinued.

They find this sort of thing fascinating, but non-alliums are bored to tears.

-Mark

Google Eyes

Evidently Google is branching out into the arts and crafts industry!
Or maybe the label is telling me HOW MANY eyes are in the package, in which case I think I may have been shorted a bit. It looks to me that there are fewer than 10x10^100 eyes in there.

Needless to say, this bag of googly eyes will be my (and hopefully your) source of amusement for the near-term.

-Mark