Stuff and Things

Cru Jones Rad Hoodie

Projects, Stuff and Things

Gentlemen, behold!

Look what I have created!

It’s a hooded sweatshirt version of Cru Jones’ Rad Racing jersey from Rad. I know this movie came out in 1986 and it isn’t even popular enough to be released on DVD yet. But I just wanted one. I wanted it bad. I think it’s the right time for something like this. I don’t know what you call this genre of clothing. Adult costumes you can wear everyday? Costume Hoodies? I’m starting to see them out there more and more. Marc Ecko has a Star Wars line that is really awesome (I own the storm trooper hoodie)  A few years ago I thought it would be a cool idea to print out my own version of the “Rad Racing” shirt from the movie. But then I found that someone else had beat me to it. If you do a search for that now you’ll find a lot of different versions of it.  The colors of this aren’t “movie prop accurate” but I thought bright red and blue would be too much to actually wear on a regular basis, which is what I made this for.  I can’t wait for the first time somebody gets the reference and asks me where I got it.

When I was designing this I had all these grand plans to sell them on Etsy.com. I even thought of two company names, High Art Hoodies or Cult Status.  I thought that if I could sell them for about $75 it would make it worth the effort. Everything was going great until I hit the last step, sewing. It turns out that sewing is hard. I did eventually finish but the quality is on par with Old Navy not Marc Ecko. Luckily I was going for the comfortable soft felt vibe. If I do get some response on this I’ll probably have to find some ways to make the process easier. Like having someone else do the sewing! I do have all the templates for the stars and letters ready, so that will save some time. I’m thinking I could get them laser cut from a fabrication shop and then find out how much a dry cleaners or alteration shop would charge me to sew them on. With this being a limited edition product with a small but dedicated I would imagine that someone would be interested in it.

Get your taste of the thunder after the break… and more pictures.

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Bose Stormtrooper Headphones

Projects, Stuff and Things
The Bosetroopers

The Bosetroopers

When I got the IPhone I stopped using the old Bose headphones. So I decided that I would paint them.  The only problem with this is that I’ve never been able to paint anything that looked good for longer than a week. I set these aside until I almost forgot about them, I pulled them out last night to take a look at them. Turns out I used water based paint in the airbrush and it had already started flaking off. So instead of taking my time and finishing the design with perfection, I descided to whip out the extra-fine paint pen and just freehand it. I took a bunch of pictures because I’m sure that in a week or so these are gointg to look like crap and I’m going to have to do a lot of work to start over.

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DIY Wedding registry is not quite ready for prime time.

Projects, Stuff and Things
This pot is $49.99

This pot is $49.99

But it is ALMOST there. I’ve been using the Amazon wish list for a long time now and I really like it. The addition of the Universal wish list was a great addition, I just have the universal wish list bookmark on the firefox toolbar to add things from other sites. So when it came time to register for the wedding I thought… hmm… I wonder if Amazon has a wedding registry. It does!

We started using it a couple weeks ago and we’ve found some shortcomings with it. First off, While I do like shopping online, there are somethings that I want to see in person. When it comes to choosing a good set of pots and pans I want to hold the handle in my hand and see the finish for myself. I had heard about the iphone app Redlaser which scans bar codes and looks up the prices online on Amazon and Google. So I went ahead and bought it. The first time I tried it out it was amazing… it just worked. I scanned in a set of pans, it looked them up on Amazon and found that they were $30 cheaper online. Great! Then I noticed that you

Laurel as Vanna

Laurel as Vanna

can add to the wish list directly from the iphone! Could life get any better? I submit that it could not! But then I noticed something, you can’t add something to the Wedding registry from the Mobile version of Amazon.com (glaring omission #1). So I thought I would just add them to my wish list then move them over later, until I found out later that you CANT DO THAT. (glaring omission #2) So you have to… find the item on the wish list, click on it, re-add it to the wedding registry, then remove it from your wish list.

So what could have been “historically awesome” was rendered “just pretty cool” by Amazon.

In Summary the good things about Redlaser and Amazon are…

  • The Redlaser app is historically awesome.
  • Amazon Registry works with the universal wish list button.
  • The Registry separates the items into categories.
  • unique URL for sending out to people.

Bad things…

  • Universal wish list items are relegated the universal wish ghetto at the bottom of the page.
  • You can’t move items from your regular wish lists to the registry.
  • Cant put things on the wedding registry from Amazon mobile.
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Into the Wild Digital Yonder. part 3.

Projects, Stuff and Things

I got the converter boxes in the mail about a week ago and I thought that it would be easy to hook up the giant antenna that’s attached to the roof of our tiny homestead. But like everything in this house it’s not going to be easy.

I climbed up on the roof to check out the situation, which was rusty.
I’d seen that the cable from the antenna runs into the side of the house, but I couldn’t find where it came out. I looked in the front room, nothing. I went down to the root cellar… (this house is old)… nothing there. I crawled under the front room of the house to look for the cable… nothing. Then finally I went to the outside of the house and gave it a little pull… it came right out. Looks like nobody has used this thing in 30 years. then, thinking of my next step, I decided to see If I could re-route the wire into the window and use it instead of rewiring the antenna. But of course, nothing is easy in this house, the wire is glued into a hole that runs into the screened in porch. No problem, I’ll just dig it out a little with a screwdriver and everything will be peachy. So, after about 20 minutes of scraping of thick tar… the cable snaps and I’m stuck on the roof with only 6 feet of cable. Which barely reaches the window. So I test it out by taping the converter box to the outside of the window and hooking the busted cable into it. There’s nothing like having to point the remote out the window to get it to work, Ghetto style!

Bottom Line: It Works!

I’ll have to re wire the cable, but it’s not going to be that hard… right.

Into the Wild Digital Yonder. part 2.

Projects, Stuff and Things

I cant shake it. That need to buy new DVDs and products from movies. Even as I’m packing up the first shipment of DVDs to send off the that great disc buyer in the sky (buybackmadness.com) I still want new ones! I read an article about Matt Groening and the new Futurama movie coming out soon and I thought “Wouldn’t it be great to have all those movies sitting along with the series DVDs” That was my first thought, not “I hope this one is good” or “I can’t wait to see it” but “I want to have the whole set”

Is there some kind of pill that I can take that will make me slightly less OCD about this kind of thing. I still need to be a little bit obsessed in order to get all my projects done… but I just don’t want to keep collecting junk so that I can have the full set.

I’m not going to buy that dvd, mostly because I haven’t bought the others. But really because I have a plan for a cheaper, better, all-digital lifestyle.

Later!

Dear Cable, I'm just not that into you.

Entertainment, Projects, Stuff and Things, The Interweb, TV

Laurel has been pushing the idea of getting rid of the cable for some time. All the time actually. She didn’t have much more than basic cable growing up and even later in her life. I on the other hand have never been deprived of the magic of cable channels and a big library of VHS tapes. It’s not like she’s one of those people who spent their nights reading Tolkien and playing Frisbee golf. But when she moved in with me I introduced her to the wonder that is DVR.

I sort of feel like a drug dealer… telling her, “you know you need it, look how cool this is”

Cable is one of those things (like purchasing an Ipod) where you can start out wanting to spend $40 and end up with a bill that’s over $100. If cable had “A La Carte” pricing for channels I don’t think I would be having this conversation, but the cable industry won’t listen to that until it starts shedding subscribers. Even then their first reaction will probably be to raise the prices on Internet service. My biggest sticking point for keeping cable will be how will I watch sports. There’s not really that many options for live sports online. But really I don’t watch them enough to justify $100 per month.

I could just cut down on the channels and cut out the DVR, but I would rather watch nothing than watch without the ability to rewind. I’m still making the preparations for this plan (along with the DVD selling) so I’ll be updating on my progress.

later!