because yatsu has seen michael jackson’s thriller one too many times, that’s why. (^_^) why is it $50? well, that’s a whole other story. here is that story:

a) vinyl. black and red.
b) 15 signatures (approx ~ 300 ppg).
c) extra stitching around the corners.
d) machine stitching on the V, front and back.
e) covers formed in two parts, one of which was stitched upon and then glued to the other.
f) thick cotton cording on spine, which required pliars to wrest through the aforementioned uber thick coverboards.
g) between stitching the book block, stitching the vinyl, gluing the vinyl, mismatching the endpapers, formulating a spine plan on the fly and finally brushing the glue-y residue off the cover for five hours, this thing took a whole week’s worth of nights to make.

it’s a Modernist story, obviously. (^^;)

for more info on the ZOMBEH book, feel free to check out it’s etsy listing. the other thing i wouldn’t mind you doing is voting in the BESTbooks blog poll. technically, the real reason yatsu made this book was to enter the halloween contest we’re having. (^_^) so head on over and check out the totally cool books people made for this thing, and then help me trounce them all by voting for me! … well, okay, that candy corn book is cute. and flurrsprite’s bone thing is awesome. ok, fine! just vote for whoever you want to then! see if i care.

also today, i went a’shopping w/ my mommeh, and took some cell phone pics, but my phone’s out of batteries at the moment, so that’ll have to wait. ‘night~

Labels: books, etsy, facts

hello. i’m satan, and i’d like to talk to you about birthdays. that’s right, today we mark the end of another whole year with yatsu. our favorite bookbinder is a little busy today, she’s got class and work to get to, books on weimar germany to read, her (somehow) very first power point presentation ever to prepare, but she did manage to send this picture along of her morning’s feast. in case you don’t recognize it, this is a Crack Cookie, known to the more normal parts of the globe as a no-bake oatmeal cookie. defined by yatsu’s sister in a moment of wildly keen insight as a peanut butter and chocolate concoction that causes you to eat fourteen of them in a row without noticing. yatsu exercised her limited cooking skills (seriously folks, it’s this and scrambled eggs) last night and whipped these up as a b-day present to herself and those cubicle mates of hers lucky enough to sit in her row. because she’s a hobbit. look for further proof after she returns from her day’s labors!

Labels: mobi

Labels: facts, NaNoWriMo, satan, writing

spurred on by the invisible power of the wiki, my sister tried her hand at cutting her own hair last night. it turned out not so bad, so i thought about it all day, and this evening i decided to let the power of the wiki overpower me as well. as you can see, it didn’t go all that badly. actually, now that my hair is fully dry, i’m willing to say it actually looks good. actually, with my fancy new goggles and aviator hat, i’m willing to say it looks awesome. once the weather cools back down to appropriate levels (that would be 65 farenheit degrees or lower, for those of you wondering) and i get to wear some turtlenecks, it’s really gonna look cute. once i get up off my lazy bum and try exercising for once in my bloody life (that would be Not Likely, for those of you wondering) and manage to get my stomach back to some kind of acceptable shape, i may actually be able to call myself Attractive. of course, if i’m so busy writing this november, perhaps i’ll forget to eat. about as likely as the sun forgetting to rise, but hey, gas is back under $3/gallon, so hope has resprung eternal.

it comes in quarts? (^_^) my sister and i were shopping today for supplies for our Great Bento Possibility Bake In, and were searching (in vain) for miso paste and mirin when we visited Trader Joe’s. the above is what i walked out of the store with. as i say, we did not end up with any miso, nor any mirin. sad, since we found everything else quite easily. unfortunately, we didn’t go out early enough in the evening to get to the asian grocery store before they closed, so we’re heading over there tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, we’re eager to try our hand at things like mini chicken burgers, mini black bean burgers, and cooked-to-death peppers. (^_^)

mm? what are those little sticker-y things behind the ice cream? well! let me tell you! i bought a sticker maker (the 2.5 inch xyron one) to compliment the 2 inch circle punch i bought the other day and the 2 inch monogram punch i bought some number of months ago. they have fancy kits with extra borders and different fonts and stuff, so i decided to make… PROMOS! now i have 50 stickers and 50 non-stickers to send out as i see fit. i shall soon be listing my services over @ notuboc, so if you’re in the market, keep your eyes peeled!

by the way, the canoe is wood.

that’s right, because we’re 32 days away from the most ass-kickin’ NaNo yet. i ask you, what can go wrong with a viking hat THAT BIG on the participant logo? (^_^) well, of course, not having a plot or even a semblance of one is something of a badge of honour amongst us NaNo…nians (?) but as it turns out, i actually have a preponderance of possibilities this year. there’s a whole forum for people who are doing NaNo who aren’t actually noveling, so i could do a whole month of short stories. not that i haven’t done that before, but i could up the ante by sticking to the 50,000 word count and maybe even demanding that all the stories be interconnected. i certainly have a series of connected stories already that i could do, and i wouldn’t even be cheating that much, as they pretty much all need a rewrite from the ground up. then there’s my original plan, to rewrite Blessing The Troops from two years ago, and i am working on editing the thing, but the further i get into it, the more i end up feeling like i don’t have enough political intrigue skill to write this thing in any kind of interesting way. (T_T) not that i’m not eager to do research! not that i don’t own about three books on medieval warfare and tactics and politics! i’m just not certain i can do them all AND get my classes done properly AND bind books simultaneously. not that i’ll be doing much of anything besides writing in november anyway, but the research part really is going to be important for that story, and i’d like to do it right. the third, and currently likely, possibility is doing a completely unrelated story, one that i’ve been thinking about for a couple of months now. it’s one part james bond, one part melodramatic trip down memory lane and maybe one part island of lesbos. that’s right, lesbian spies. i think, how can that be wrong!?

not that there weren’t things today that were Wrong. actually, last night, too, but we’ll get to that in a moment. what was wrong today was a) it was monday, b) my class is Early and c)

that’s right, class was cancelled. i? really freaking HATE these pink slips. when i see one? i want to cry. all was not lost, however. i had my laptop with me, i could indeed check my email as the note bid me do. turns out my prof was down with a case of food poisoning (today’s lesson? beware shady chinese takeout.) and so we shall begin our discussion of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (a book i would like to join publisher Edward Garnett in dismissing out of hand) on wednesday rather than today. so i’ve got at least another day to find some deep, long-hidden reserve of Giving A Shit with which to finish this stupid book as quickly as humanly possible. section three? made me want to kill myself. i thought, can i just end it already? the reason the sparknotes page is the first link on google for this book is because people just aren’t strong enough. they are defeated by fifty pages of vivid imagings of hell and its environs. they give up twenty-five pages in, struck by the sudden revelation that they really don’t give a flip about modern irish politics. do i know who Charles Stewart Parnell is? vaguely. do i care enough to sit through 100+ pages of stream-of-conciousness crap about the boy’s father’s relationship to this man? i do not. nor will i ever. too bad i have to read this for a grade. (T_T) i should actually stop complaining. it’s been a while since i’ve been forced to read something, and i know in my head that this is one of those Books That Should Be Read that we’re always hearing about, i just wish it didn’t make me want to leap headlong from the nearest window.

back on track with the exciting things that happened today, i was at the bus stop, waiting to head straight back home (T_T) when this flash of black and blue running suit books past me. it takes a minute to register, and i have to step out from a lineup of bus-waiting peoples, but i managed to catch proof of the elusive sarita in her natural habitat. you won’t be able to tell it’s her, because by the time i got to snap the photo, she was but a blur on the distant horizon, but i know it’s her, and she’ll know it’s her – if she ever turns out to really browse the internets. (^_^)

ha! (^_^) well, it was 9.34 AM, so she was probably late to class, and she was bookin’ it down the street at such insane speeds that literally i did not even realize it was her until she was totally down the street (^^;) but there she is anyway. victory, or something like it.

when i got home, i also did something good, and that is begin the revision of the piece i’m turning in for fiction workshop this winter. well, the piece i’m turning in so that i can get in to fiction workshop this winter. the course is by permission only. the prof said to turn it in “by the end of October” but we all know that if i let myself believe that, i’ll turn it in too late. so i decided to jump on my free hour and a half (T_T) and get to it. i got about halfway done before i had to go to work, but it now WILL get done. i can finish it up either tonight or tomorrow night and then turn it in wednesday WHILE I’M ALREADY ON CAMPUS! how clever!

speaking of clever (lord, this post is running long) i was at the grocery yesterday, looking for qtips (because no qtips = Bad) when i happened upon the following::

i laughed out loud. someone at Giant Eagle Knows. then i thought, why would they put that sign there? maybe it was the condoms that hung above it. when you gotta have some, you gotta have some, maybe? well, i went with that theory for a moment, until i turned around and saw this:

so someone at Giant Eagle does Know.

i tell ya!

work on TFB (that would be The Fabled Bookbag) continues unabated. i’ve finished the side panel, complete with cell phone pocket and magnetic flap, and i’m currently working on the double-layered bottom panel. during a much-needed break this afternoon, however, my sister and i took a trip to Joann’s and the Container Store for an organization planning session. she’s a jeweler, and as such, is often innundated with beads. my own bookbinding also finds me frequently beset by paper, but at least most of my goods lie flat for “easy” storage. (^^;) carolyn, on the other hand, requires things like spice jars and vials. we ended up buying a set of those plastic drawers usually used for scrapbooking supplies and then filled the lot of them with little spice vials and jars and other assorted glass things that look like they belong in an apothacary. well, caught up in the organization fever, i decided to clean/sort my own goods upon our return. … four hours later, i can almost see the table again. (T_T) i CAN see the floor again though, so i suppose it wasn’t a total waste. also, i’ve discovered that i could pretty much go for another year of bookbinding w/out buying a single piece of paper and be perfectly functional. on the one hand, that makes me sad, to think of myself, not buying a single piece of paper for a whole year. on the other hand, it’s not like i’ll be buying any paper anyway, given my current level of financing. that being POOR, in case you were wondering. class? is really too expensive. and $50 gas tank fill-ups are really not helping. i’m just lucky i’ve got a job that pays relatively well and isn’t likely to go out of style any time soon.

speaking of things that are in style, NaNo’s site launched sneakily early! it’s new! and fancy! so go check it out! !!!

(today’s subtheme was aliteration, but then we stopped caring.)

Labels: craft, facts, school