Monkeys and keyboards aside, one Random + CSS still doesn't make poop.

To do:

Call the guy about the local park craft fairs; find out past attendance numbers, about bringing tables, and so on.

Get PA tax status together

Find and hand off paperwork for the heritage days festival down the road

Ponder what it is in the statement "We request 30% of your sales as commission for selling at our event. We do not monitor your sales. The commission paid is on the honor system" that makes me read it as "LIE. LIE EXTRAVAGANTLY." Maybe it's that my profit margin on a lot of not-made-by-me things is at or around 30%, and the things I sell the most of at tribal bellydance shows are--surprise!--the imported authentic tribal pieces.

Mail things to Soso-chan

Start epic harassment of varying vendors & wholesalers



I'm almost out of rings for anklets, I'm running low on hair sticks and don't want to glue more pins or paint more chopsticks, and I'm trying to figure out a new earring design that'd use some of these gemstones from the last Fire Mountain order. Unfortunately, there's no rushing creativity. :P Meh. I guess, then, that it's time for me to go back to cowrie falls.

The revamped business cards came in today, and the improvement is marked. <3 for zen_of_nihilism and his re-designing of our original design.



I'm also over my stock point for ANext, with a few weeks to go. I have to wait for my TRL order to come in before I can make any more flower hair sticks, and I'm going to run out of rings for belts & necklaces really soon . . . Guess that means it's time for more cowrie falls.

(Yes, I know it says cowry instead of cowrie on the business card. Both are correct, and though I tend to use cowrie more, cowry gets more hits on my google adwords account. I don't ask.)




Also, the Jessica/Hoyt 'ship from True Blood is either gonna give me diabetes or a heart attack. Possibly both. I <3 it--possibly more than the revving-up dysfunction of Sookie & Eric.

I pulled a muscle sometime yesterday, became extremely, unpleasantly aware of it this morning, and sometime during my highly medicated & immobile afternoon, realized that I'm one of those people who would've gone absolutely batshit insane if subjected to the rest cure. I got up and down and back up again despite not really being able to use my right arm or turn my head; I sorted a billion little mixed bits of stuff I don't really have use for; I tried to make more things despite myself; I tried to convince Snuggly Hubby that I needed to buy him an early birthday dinner (if he'd just drive me somewhere) . . .

This sucks. :P


Next step is to medicate with alcohol and ice cream. And maybe more of this:



In short: A pound and a half of deep fried mashed potato smilies, half a pound of cheese, a pound of steak slices, sour cream, jalapeno & cheese sour cream (no, one kind wasn't enough), and a half pound of bacon. I might not survive my next helping, but damn it I'll die happy.

If I do this, I'll have the time to get to everything that needs done. But that silly guaranteed-paycheck day job is in the way . . .

That being said, I've got $7 on Borders going out of business in or by August. (Last week it was $5--then I learned how close we came to going under at the end of last quarter.) We're not getting in a lot of titles again, just like we were when we didn't have credit or funds to buy books from the publishers . . . We've got bargain everywhere, trying to lure in the cheap people with non-returnables and remainders no one wanted to begin with . . . We've got empty shelves left and right, and stores that've been hit by Project Phoenix don't even have the hours to get new releases out of pallets and onto the floor . . . And then the head of Pershing, the company that owns 40% of our stocks and is in charge of our one $42.5 million loan, seems to think that we're really, really aiming towards something we're not.

The business model of book superstores, however, is likely to change over time from primarily bookstores to merchants of a wider variety of products and services which are designed to appeal to the higher-income educated consumer that, on average, spends an hour or more in a book superstore.

Hope Otakon goes well enough to cover the expected forthcoming holes in my finances. Stock-wise, I'm almost back up to where I was for ANext. Two more weeks' hard crunchwork should get me up to a decent level. I hope.



I think I shall stab the next person who asks me if this is made of "pop tabs." (Though the last person to ask me seemed borderline-illiterate--I stood an aisle away from her today at work and listened to her painful attempts at pronouncing titles, and I felt sad for her.)





Reading China Mieville's The City & The City, and remembering how much I missed the thinking person's fantasy as opposed to the straightforward popcorn reads. While it's a little dry and the characterization doesn't really stand out in any way, it's very intelligently written and the worldbuilding's fascinating enough to help drive the narrative forward & keep my attention. I'm about a third of the way through and thus far I like it. :)

I have an ARC and might be persuaded to let it go once I'm finished. :)

<3 Lowe's Sad Plant Rack. While my garden is still in desperate need of attention, I now have some pretty and cheap flowers to add to its overgrown, daisy-studded chaos.

~~

George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.

<3 Neil Gaiman. I wanna be Neil when if I grow up.

~~

<3 the weather people being incompetent. They called a giant terrible storm for today. It's nice and bright and sunny--I think I'll go get a sunburn. (And after that ten minute venture, I'll sit on the porch and play with tribal necklaces.)

~~

<3 cutting the Fire Mountain order down to $205, and the The Ring Lord one down to $320. Five hundred in expenditures is to be whined at--six hundred is a bit much.

~~

<3 whiting fillets, dipped in egg & salted bisquick, then deep-fried and nommed on wheat thin buns--sometimes with a bit of Caesar dressing for added flavor. I keep making more, intending to share them with zen_of_nihilism--and then I keep eating them. :D



World is happy. :D


Also, I am never allowed to go this long without weeding my garden again. But Mr. Kitchen-bunny definitely <3'd this dandelion leaf.

To do by Saturday:

Crop, post, &/or send pics from ANext Done

Take, clip, & send pic of best work for AA gallery for ANext

Start mass production mode for flowers (almost completely out of scales) $5 hair sticks (out of lower-end glass beads) $10 level hair sticks, and/or tribal necklaces tired of gem chips & crimp beads. (This involves drilling & painting the 200 or so pairs of blank chopsticks from the Craft Wheelie of D00m.)

Car payment.

Work on etsy a little

Order business cards (since I ran out of those, too)

Continue to stare woefully @ FMG and TRL orders. Maybe the internets shall show mercy and magically make them cost less. (Even though I need both of them. All $500 worth.)

Call Bernie & confirm times for the Tamalyn Dallal show this Saturday Get there @ 6:30, bring an extra table, bring a cup of mint plants, oh and btw pack.

Call Comcast and get a modem that isn't wildly outdated and perpetually hiccuping. Pickup is on Monday. New modem yay!

Get my paperwork together for the local 30k+-person craft shows.

Post a small rant for newageamazon's online grrl-mag The Riot about the absolute WTFery of the current cnn.com article which states that wives deserve to be cheated on if they are "bad wives". The justification of infidelity with statements like "If we're going to point fingers at men behaving badly, we have to take a look at the women's behavior that may provoke it" may make me set something on fire.

EPIC EBAY BATTLE. Seriously, what the shit is this?

im saying the day you get the letter with tracking # is the day they are shipped .. if you look at my feed back you will see that how i do so it was mailed and has not been counted for at post office i i give them all to my post man .. so i said i will take it up with them .. and she u a new nelt ok ?

Three and a half weeks until Otakon. If I walk out of there any less than $3000 up, I've done something terribly wrong--or not done a whole lot of somethings. It will not be the latter.

I'm pretty sure that after expenses, I made more at ANext (on a smaller table!) than I did at ACen. I'm definitely sure that I sold much more stock.

Things keep looking more and more up. Except for the epic restocking part, or the bit where I have to go back to normal work the next morning. :P


So! From here I need . . . An epic theringlord order, a stupidly sized fire mountain order, the Asian food store for more bulk chopsticks, and a month or three of time to pull this shit off. And espresso.

. . . I get the strange feeling TPTB at Borders won't let me go on sabbatical for a month.

*espresso-zombies about*

ANext = awesome :P I made as many hair sticks as I did for ACen--and I got hit harder on them here than I did there. I made a few dozen maille flowers for earrings, hair sticks, etc.--and have run out a few times. I made upwards of fifty maille anklets and have been playing catch-up since Friday.

You know how fucked I am for Otakon? Epically. I should quit Borders right now. Except for how I ph34r a conventionless winter.

French blueberry vodka? Also awesome. Zomg.

Sleep is still for the weak. And I will graciously admit to being weak, thx.

Last-minute to-do:

Bank run

(Chinese food) made me sick D:

Clean (bunnies, kitchen, laundry; collect escaped craft items)

Cooler check

Build & paint belt display (which isn't as god-awful as it sounds, sorta) and hopefully test it.

set up displays that can be pre-set up

transfer spreadsheets to tiny computer (or at least to ipod/hdd, along with the new Crystal Method cd, which is tasty)

pack car

pack self (with special note to all the plugs & wires & merchant services whatnot)

set aside some beads for dice bags, make more flowers for hair sticks/earrings, consider tribal necklaces & something involving these little gears

turn off etsy for weekend

I staggered out of bed this morning when my phone started ringing, made it across the house, and answered while still half-asleep. Anyone who's seen this from me knows it never ends well.

"'Lo?"

"Hi," said the person on the other end. "I need the number for the Western PA Humane Society."

Like I said, I wasn't awake. "What?"

"The number for the Western PA Humane Society."

Ever helpful, I started staggering back across the house towards the computer. "Who's this again?"

"Western PA Humane Society."

You, dear alert reader, may have guessed at this point that something wasn't quite right. Me? I was still half-asleep. I'd called the humane society a few times regarding Kabuki's epic camping trip about a week ago, and somehow it made sense for them to call me back, asking for their own number.

Sort of.

". . . Humane society?"

"Yeah," she said. "I've got two cockatiels and I need to give them up. Think you could take them?"

The mental story I'd concocted to explain this shifted a little: The humane society was now calling me to offer animals. But I was still confused as hell.

"I . . . Huh? I don't think I could, the bunnies--the bunnies are evil, you see, and they . . . they've got claws like, and teeth, and--"

Yes, I quote Monty Python while semi-conscious.

At about this time, I plopped into the computer chair. It's funny how sitting down in front of my computer clears my head--or at least makes me question whatever lolgical whirlpool I've trapped myself in. Why would the humane society call me to try and give me animals? (I know I'm a sucker for them, but seriously.) And why would they not know the number for themselves/a sister facility?

"Once more," I said. "Who are you?"

"Debbie."

"From?"

"Springdale."

"And you want . . ."

"The number for the humane society."

This was the point where I started to actually wake up, and I realized a) this person's bleeding nuts, and b) I wouldn't get in trouble for being rude to them.

"So you called me for their number."

"Well, yeah, but I couldn't--"

"But you don't know me."

"Well, yeah, but I couldn't--"

"So you want me to be your own personal yellow pages?"

"But I couldn't find the number!"

"And you couldn't use 411?"

"I didn't try--"

"THEN HOW ABOUT YOU TRY THAT INSTEAD OF CALLING ME?" And I hung up.


I have half a mind to call her back while she's asleep--you know, at about three or four in the morning--but I feel the proper response to epic annoyance is not to perpetuate the epic annoyance. Maybe. So I brought it here.


Dear Debbie,

You are the laziest, stupidest excuse for a human being I've run into this year. You don't deserve pets and I hope to hell you don't have children. I'd tell you to get a phone book, but I doubt you can spell well enough to read it. Apparently it's too much for you to make sense when you dial random Pittsburgh-area-code numbers, asking for favors from strangers.

No love,

a very cranky, sleep-deprived Random




(I can not make this shit up. I don't have the energy.)

Today I accomplished a belt, five anklets, three pairs of coppery loop earrings, a pile of balls, and a few too many strange deviantart submission titles. I also realized that this is officially my second full-time job.

And to think, I always wonder why I can't seem get any writing done. Though I'm trying. A few lines here and there is better than nothing.

Tomorrow I make cowrie falls, dice bags, and a billion metal flowers.

Is it just me, or do we seem to be revisiting "Copyright: You're Doin' it Wrong" fairly frequently as of late?

The latest chapter: J.D. Salinger doesn't like when people try to make money off of him by professionally publishing fanfic of his work. Who'd have thought?

I still don't get why these little publishers would even want to risk the lawsuit and recall expenses that could come from taking something like this on. It's probably a combination of ignorance and greed that brings out defense statements like this:

Silverman, whose company distributes books by about 150 publishers, called "60 Years Later" a work of "social science fiction," saying that California doesn't plagiarize, but sets a well-known character in an alternate place and time -- as literature has done for centuries.

Fail and epic fail! This person needs to sort out the differences between plagiarism and copyright violation. Technically, only one is illegal--and that one's the one we're looking at.


Methinks this particular author and Lady Potato Moon need to get together and justify themselves to each other, in a vacuum, for the rest of eternity.

Today I finished two belts, five helm weave anklets, two mobius + 4-in-1 anklets, one lapis & half persian anklet, and a dozen or so little metal flowers.

I have nine full days until ANext (most of which are Borders work days) and my hands hurt. I don't expect to finish everything I want to, but here's to seeing how much I can get done by then.




(Planned: Three more sets of cowrie falls, six more 4-in-1 anklets, three more Kuchi coin & maille anklets, three more pairs of copper jingly drops earrings [and a few of whatever other color I have handy], thirty more pairs of hair sticks, four more small dice bags, three more large dice bags, a set of juggling balls, some googlebombing, the displays [painting, foam-filling], a bunch of stuff I've currently forgotten, and a whole lot of drinking.)

A while ago, I made a giant maille hip scarf/belt. It sold to a woman on the other side of the country late last month. Needless to say, I never expected to see it again.

Well, I was wrong--because here it is on youtube. :D linkity link

This is kinda cool. :)


(Dear Youtube embed feature: I don't like you.)



Less than two weeks until ANext, and I'm really blatantly putting things off. At least I'm pretty set with anklets, keychains, & earrings. You know--the little stuff that goes for fairly little prices. :P What I really need to work on are cowrie falls, killer Kuchi necklaces, & belts.

Say you find a collarless dog running along the side of the road one night. Would you . . .

A) Call the proper authorities--in this locale's case, the police--and let them handle it.
B) Take it to the vet/shelter/whatnot.
C) Take it camping.


The answer is apparently C.

Long story short: Zen and I had to go to a wedding in Harrisburg and figured it'd be okay to leave the dogs tied out overnight. Kabuki slipped her collar, ran off, and made friends--and we spent all day Saturday and half of today worried sick/mobilizing the neighbors/calling whatever powers-that-be we could get a hold of.

In the meantime, the square-headed crackho was off enjoying hot dogs on sticks. The guy who had her finally decided to call her in today.

*headwall*


At least I've learned that the local animal shelters are on the ball when it comes to searching for & helping find lost doggies. But I still don't know if they have any adoptable goats. Kudos for them! :)

If the post that went up at the forums today is any indication, it looks like Hey, I'm in at Otakon.

. . .

OHSHIT. I THINK I'M IN AT OTAKON.


Must get back to work--and find out how many more vacation days I have left. And order more bells, since I blew through about 700 of them in less than a month. And collect appropriately spazz-flailey macros.

*flail*

I have grown a deep and frightening love for Excel spreadsheets. I'm mapping out costs and income; I'm charting expenses; I'm organizing and labeling and pricing all my stock. Then I'm starting the scary part: mass-producing. Why have one pair of earrings when I can have five? Why have (and sell out of) three anklets when I can have ten? And why oh why do I keep running out of materials?

Actually, nix that last question. :P

I had the terrible urge to break out the old TI-82 and program pricing things into it, but now I don't have to. Instead I'll keep trolling firemountaingems.com. I have the terrible feeling I'm gonna spend around $200 there this time, and the greater (for better or worse) feeling that I'm gonna need everything I pick up. Especially if Otakon comes through, as Otakon's forums say we (aka the trollish con crew) should hear back about the artists' alley tables by the 27th. If we don't, I'm in @ the South Side Works Artists Exposed festival the weekend before. Either way, we're definitely going to be at AnimeNext from June 12-14.

I looked at my planned stock vs. my workweeks and decided I need an icon of a little flailing something running in circles. :P

~~

A pair of purple finches are building a nest directly outside of my front door. I didn't know it was still nesting season for anything, but I'm sitting here with a camera anyway, waiting to get a picture of them. It's sort of relaxing.

~~

And for my non-PC moment . . . I got my little Aveo5. After my immediate, knee-jerk naming (Bob--everything is Bob) I decided I should call it something more appropriate. It's small and blue and boxy, and it's bigger on the inside, and--I had it! I'd call it . . .

Nah. Too twee to call it a Tardis. Especially since it only travels in space & time in a most perfunctory manner.

I can't call it Tard; no matter the reason behind the name, it'd be a little rude and probably get me in trouble. But I still kinda want to. Then zen_of_nihilism says I can't call it my Tar-baby, so Tar-car it is. So I'm happy to welcome my little blue Tar to my . . . erm . . . debt. So far it seems to be getting about 40 miles to a gallon, and Onstar (with its directions & destination GPS feature) seems like it'll come in handy once I start traveling to new and interesting places. Which'll be next weekend.

Now to keep it far from the icky people who like to bounce their car doors off my door. :P

I called my insurance co, Liberty Mutual, to find out how much a new blue Bob would cost me a month. They told me it'd bump my monthly rate to $160.

"Holy shit!" I said. "What did I ever do to you people? And when will I ever be old enough for the insurance to go down?"


Dreams of a shiny blue Bob burst into sad blue flames. I can handle a $30 bump in car payments; I can't handle $160 a month in insurance.

I swore. I grouched. I whined. I called Geico. (Hey, I like the gecko.)

Geico gave me a quote of half what Liberty Mutual would charge for the exact same coverage.

Half.

It's $10 more a month for ubercoverage, which is still very feasible--and still would leave me at less than I'm paying now in car + insurance. I'm a little shellshocked right now, to say the least.


I ph34r my haggling abilities are shot now, of course--I know the MSRP for the car I'm looking at & the difference between that & the quoted price, but if I get an insurance policy for it then the sale'll look pretty cemented and I doubt the salesperson will budge much if at all. Which saddens me.

But--the difference between the MSRP and the quoted price is the difference between the loan payoff if they do it & the payoff if I do it. So things work out even.

(Still scared. :P Oh well!)

I'm considering trading in my shiny silver Steve for something that can handle cargo a little better. Anyone out there had any experience with a Chevy Aveo? I can get a base model '09 hatchback for $30 more a month than I'm paying now, with only a year extra on the loan--and that's only if I don't haggle on the price they're telling me.

I'm wibbling. Steve's check engine light is on, its fan doesn't work, it needs new tires, and its RPMs peridically drop really, really low when I hit the clutch. It's three years old and is about to crack 60k miles--and the way I drive it, it'll hit 200k miles just as I pay it off. But a new car is yet another big commitment, and this particular new car seems to get hated on by car reviewers--even if it looks like that hate's directed at newer models solely because they're not Honda or Toyota.

. . . But a new car bought for business reasons might qualify as yet another business expense. And it's even in the color I want.

. . . But it's more loans to pay, and a bitty baby engine, and no AC.

. . . But I don't use AC, could really use the mp3 jack so I'm not fucking with CDs on my way down the turnpike in the dark, and could fit all my wheelies and displays in there with no problem/less destruction of car, like when I wrangle the 80lb muddy wheelie into Steve's back seat (via the passenger door--it's funny to watch, I tell you) and belt it in.



. . . Bah. :P

The con co-conspirator and I put in our Otakon AA applications minutes after they became available. Here's to hoping it was fast enough.

It's easily gonna be 27,000 people. If I get in there, I'm not seeing any feasible way I'd be able to do the weekend show the week before. But I might not mind.


(Why yes, the prospect of taking in a quarter of my yearly pay in a weekend intrigues me, even as it simultaneously scares me to death. I'd literally have to double ACen's stock just to survive.)