REM & Improv Everywhere

Some of you may remember a stunt I posted on by Improv Everywhere a couple months ago. A group of I think 300 agents infiltrated Grand Central Station in NYC and froze simultaneously for five minutes. If you haven't watched it yet, it's surely worth it.

Well a couple days ago REM posted this video, which IE was calling a shameless ripoff.

I guess it kind of is. I mean they're obviously doing the same sort of thing, and that is in fact a ripoff... sort of.

Wired Magazine picked this up yesterday and made a few counterpoints. The main one being everything is copied from something these days, so what's the big deal? While I don't agree with that statement necessarily I think it could be fair to say this video was inspired by, rather than ripped off from the IE video. It's even possible that they thought of it independently based on a common influence. Thill at Wired says, "It has been done before, differently and similarly, which is to say that the frozen-in-time routine is hardly an 'original idea.' As James7777777 commented on Geek Gestalt, the U.K. spoof Just for Laughs pulled the same trick almost a decade earlier, albeit in a convenience store rather than Grand Central Station."

So you could say it's not a ripoff, get over it, except that yesterday in response to the backlash REM PR people apologized, admitted that "us on team REM love the stuff you guys do," took it down and are currently redoing the video to include a nod to IE. By taking those steps, REM basically admitted that yes, it was in fact a ripoff. Honestly I don' t think there's anything wrong with that, and I'm even impressed that they're taking steps to repair the hurt feelings. Because in this case that's all it is... as far as I can tell there was no possible legal action IE could have taken as far as copyright stuff goes. (Lori, are you out there? Am I right about that?)

Here's my issue. In spite of REM's response, I don't really think this was a ripoff. For one thing the REM version doesn't take place in Grand Central Station which takes one degree of similarity away. As far as the style of the stunt, as James pointed out, freezing in a public place to confuse and weird people out? Been there. The main connection between IE's stunt and REM's stunt was the number of spectators and agents involved and the simple admission by REM that they ripped it off. That isn't enough of a similarity for me. The biggest single difference between these two videos in my mind is intent.

The purpose of the REM video is to look cool (and it does). It also succeeds wonderfully in capturing the attitude of the band REM. While the spectators involved probably didn't know what was going on, the people freezing were likely paid actors, or at least an informed group of people who wanted to be associated on video with REM rather than the stunt itself.

The IE video on the other hand uses hundreds of agents who, before they meet up right before the stunt, have no idea what they're going to be doing. In away the spectators, while even less informed, are every bit as involved as the players. And the main difference is that in IE the intent is to play, to confuse, to interact with people and spaces. This is fundamentally different from the purpose of REM.

I guess my point is that while it might have been copied it's not even possible for REM to ripoff what IE did in Grand Central station. It's the difference between art and marketing.

And since we're talking about Improv Everywhere, I'll finish off with the latest IE video from the The Boston Society of Spontaneity.

Studio Space at last

Here are the promised pictures. It's amazing how much a difference it makes having space to work. I feel like I can breathe again. Which doesn't necessarily mean I'm working obviously. Right now I'm more taking pictures of my clean drawing space and feeling really proud of myself. Small steps, right?

The first thing I did on Friday was finally put together the shelves for over the computer. They're made of steel pipe (like my desk legs) and plywood. They're pretty sturdy as a self contained unit, but unfortunately they wobble a little because apparently it's friggin' impossible to get pipes in this configuration level. Live and learn. They're up against the bookshelves though and that seems to keep steady enough. I also went out and got a bunch of these metal mesh thingies to help organize. This, combined with all the shelving and such I already had, seems to pretty much contain all my art junk. For now.These could actually make better file boxes than I would have expected. They look cooler than most file boxes I've seen at any rate.My desk looks like a picture from a storage magazine except the lighting's not as good. It's weird. I'm particularly proud of the gap beneath the bookshelves on the right that let me slide my keyboard underneath, out of the way. Very nice for drawing.Chyna likes to get behind the computer, I guess because it's warm. Apparently when I organized I shifted things around so there's no room back there. Whoops.So she stole my chair instead. Yeah, she looks sweet, but she's not giving it up without a fight.They like to watch.

Grand Central Improv

As with the Obama music video, everyone has probably already seen this, but I wanted to post it just in case. This is the (probably) latest stunt by Improv Everywhere, a group that gets hundreds of people together to cause "scenes" in public. You can look at their events as anything from a practical joke to an interactive work of performance art. I believe they're most famous for the blue shirt prank at Best Buy a few years ago.

This video in particular is actually a wonderful example of people interacting creatively with their spaces. One of the things that makes these scenes so brilliant is that they executed and then abandoned without explanation. I'd have to think that witnessing one of these scenes would be pretty shocking... in a good way.

The power of words

I ran across an article on MSN the other day that I found interesting. It talked about how using different words in real estate ads effected the time it took for a house to sell and the final sale amount.I don't find it surprising that words can have an effect on these things, what I do find surprising is how much of an effect they can have. Just including the word "landscaping" for example, makes a house sell (statistically) 20% faster than other properties, and sell for 6% more. That's a pretty impressive difference. Of course, as the article points out, just adding in the word landscaping won't help at all if there's not actually any landscaping, but it's interesting that mentioning it can have such an impact.

Other words and phrases had negative effects or mixed effects. It shouldn't be too surprising that describing yourself as a "motivated" buyer is likely to drop the selling price by an average of 8%, but I was surprised to learn that it slowed the house sale by 30%. Defining a house as a good rental property, an income line, was even worse, slowing the sale by a whooping 60% and docking the price by 9%. Some terms, such as "handyman special" lowered the price but also sped the sale.

When I look at real estate ads, I assume the description is bullshit. Subjective terms such as "beautiful" can't be called false advertising, so the only price in tacking it onto the ad is the paper's word count. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that positive words help a place sell (for more) while negative ideas (even dressed up in positive sounding jargon) hamper a sale. I'm just surprised that many people are buying it (the description, not the house). So what I've really learned in reading this article is that I've got a few years to figure out how to get my apartment style condo some "beautiful landscaping."

*picture's from flickr, linked.

Camera Counter Culture

I never wanted a camera phone. I bought this crappy chocolate back in March and didn't notice it had a camera until a few days later.

So why did I start doing this photo-a-day thing? Because my phone's memory is already filled with photos. After careful erasing I've got 200 photos left.

Everyone has those, "Gee, I wish I had a camera," moments. When I was an undergrad at ND I was returning to my dorm one day from the student center and I stopped mid-step in astonishment to look at the library. It was painted neon-pink from the sunset. It was one of the coolest natural lighting phenomenas I've ever seen. I had one of those moments then, and after a minute of being frozen in place by awe and indecision I ran like mad to my dorm to grab my camera. Of course by the time I returned the light was gone and I wished I'd just stayed to enjoy it. Then, a few years ago, driving in downtown Cleveland I was struck by the beauty of the buildings rising out of the fog. Not that I could have taken a picture even if I'd had a camera handy, but still, it gave me that feeling. Fortunately, fog and Cleveland are pretty constant bedfellows, so I've had many opportunities for further cool shots.

And now that I've GOT a camera phone, whenever I get that feeling, it's slowly followed by the realization that I do have a camera. Often my reaction is too slow to catch the moment, but I get it far more often then I did before.

This all made me think about the next generation, the kids that are growing up in the information age. This statement makes me sound pretty old I guess, and I'm not that old, but I'm not a child of the information age. I remember not having a computer. I remember not having a cell phone, much less a camera phone. Hell, I remember having a walkman that played cassettes. My point is that although people of my generation are generally very adaptable, we're used to rapidly changing technology, we're not quite as used to it as the new generation. We adapt, but the kids change as rapidly as the technology.

Soon enough, everyone will have a camera, all the time. Unlike me, these kids won't have that half second hesitation that makes them miss the moment. I'm just curious as to how this change could affect the face of photography, of imagery, and of art.

Market Days

Whenever I go to Eugene, I try to get to the 5th street market at least once. Since it's only a couple blocks from the grill (where my mom tends bar), this isn't hard.
I love the open feel of the market. While it's not quite as lively or quintessentially Eugene as the Saturday Market, the 5th street market has a relaxed atmosphere and wonderful, recently upgraded design. One of the downsides to the recent renovation is that they consolidated what was an entire wing of the market into a single shop, this is for local crafters and artisans. It's a shame that the local artists get less of a footprint there, but at least the new shops are still locally owned.

It's a bit more upscale than it used to be, which may be a response to Eugene's aging hippie population. If I wanted to be judgmental I'd say it's more yuppie now than hippie, but since I enjoy the shops that do fill the market I'd rather not go there. The second floor has a fantastic little shop of African imports, which is at least some replacement for an imports shop specializing in Egyptian items that used to be across the way. I don't mean to imply that the content is at all similar, it's only similar in that it's unique and exotic.

Just below the African shop is a furniture store with some of the coolest toy chests I've ever seen. It's way out of my price range, but I've never seen anything quite like the colorful creations. On the third floor, in kind of a crappy location, there's a funky little witchy store with little pagan and gardening decor type stuff. The Elephant's trunk, a somewhat expensive but very nifty local toy store, and Destinations, a quirky travel shop, are across the bridge, over a Japanese furniture and decorations store and a pet accessories shop. It's a good assortment with a fantastic layout that encourages leisurely browsing and enjoyment of the surroundings rather than the rushed aggressive shopping usually pushed in our consumer culture.

The wing which used to have all the artisans is now almost entirely foody stuff (I think theres an outdoor shop or something in the middle). Up top are a bunch of little express versions of local restaurants. Below there's a huge coffee/wine/gift shop that merges naturally into a neighboring flower shop and gi-nourmous kitchen store. As in, I've never seen a kitchen store this big outside of outlets or NYC.

I think what I love most about this space isn't necessarily the shops, which are always good for entertainment, but the care taken to make the space comfortable and pleasant. The combination of indoor and outdoor allows you to enjoy the air without getting too wet from the almost certain rain. During nice weather there are sometimes stalls set up in the courtyard and tables and chairs arranged for lounging. They're not associated with any of the shops, and this space has none of the usual pressure of buy or leave. This is a space created for the users, not for commercialism.

100

This is my 100th post, something that I find extremely fitting since I managed to hit 100 pages in my novel/thesis today. True, I had to cheat a little to get there, but the "filler" is legitimate chapter planning that will be expanded as I go, a normal part of my writing process. Without it I have a very real 95 pages of story and the page count at the bottom says 102, so standing by my claim of having finally reached 100 pages.

This has been a good year. Matt and I got engaged which, while I can't exactly list it as something I've accomplished, does make me very happy. I'm almost finished with classes towards my degree, this semester I'll be taking my last workshop and thesis credits. Next year I'll have a single thesis credit left to complete. On a related note, I also started a blog for the NEOMFA community. It's not exactly hopping with popularity, but we've got a handful of authors and I suspect we'll have many more join next semester.

Last year in March, we adopted Tricky. She was pregnant with six kittens, all of which were born healthy and thrived, much to our exhaustion. To Chyna's dismay, we kept the kittens until June, when went to Scotland to see our friends Greyson and Amy (different Amy than I've mentioned before, that Amy was taking care of our cats) get married. Once we were back in town we moved to the condo, a smaller space than Matt's apartment, and started working on consolidating two spaces to one at the same time as introducing two angry, female, adult cats. Surprisingly, they're good friends now, though the space is still a mess.

This year marks the first time I've felt that I had some kind of skill set that might actually allow me to get a job. I've also lost 20 lbs which makes my doctor happy, and doesn't exactly get me down either. All in all I'm feeling pretty positive about things. I do live with the constant fear that I'm a bit too happy and something horrible is bound to happen, but here's hoping that gut clenching paranoia is a karmic payment?

In-Direct

I despise malls. Great Northern Mall especially is a truly horrible place, with the shitty music from every store and kiosk competing with each other, the blinky lights and the jerky cell phone salesmen doing everything short of casting a net to attract your attention. That said, I have to admit that whoever came up with the idea of a mall directory was pretty brilliant. In a huge confusing headache inducing place like a mall, it's nice to know that every fifty feet or so there's a map to show you how to get to store you're looking for, or, if you've had all you can take, to the exit.Except that some moron at Great Northern thought it'd be great to hang smaller maps for your convenience... on top of the large lit map. Yes, I realize that I can just take one of the little maps and walk away if I really want to see what's hidden behind the plastic map holder, but come on, there's two square feet of white space down just below where they hung the stupid things. Or, if you don't believe most Americans will exert themselves enough to bend that far (and I guess I'm with you on that) how about hanging it on the side?


It's not like I needed to see what was on the map beneath the map holder, but since I couldn't SEE it, I had no way of knowing that. I happened to be looking for an electronic store and didn't see electronics anywhere else on the map. As it turned out that's because Great Northern doesn't have any electronics stores inside the mall which is just brilliant. In fact all that was under the map was men's clothing and children's clothing. Granted, it's a long tradition of stereotypes to assume that men aren't going to check the map anyway but I think it's also a long accepted stereotype, and probably a more accurate one, that most grown men want to spend as little time in the damn mall as possible, which, logically, means checking the map and getting the hell out of there. And what about the kid's stores? If I were any of the stores covered up by mini-maps I'd be pissed, but I find it hard to believe that the omniscient Disney Store puts up with it. I smell a lawsuit.

Why I hate Walmart

One of the first space issues Matt and I ran into when we first moved in together was our over abundance of books. Together we had six tall particle board bookshelves, two wide pine bookshelves that we built together (Matt did most of it) and two small particle board bookshelves. It wasn't anywhere near enough.

We didn't really want to buy any more crappy particle board shelves, but we decided we'd better suck it up and get some cheap ones. Unfortunately our options were fairly limited. Target carries tall cheap bookshelves for thirty dollars, and we had three of those already. The older ones are a single piece, built as you might expect bookshelves to be built, but the newer ones, and the only kind you can find at Target now, are in two short pieces with pegs to hold the top half to the bottom. It looks horrible. I assume they do it to save on shipping costs, but it really just looks awful. Personally I don't like even the older ones because they're this horrid fake cherry color: the quality of fake wood has deteriorated rapidly, and it wasn't good to begin with. My shelves came from Meijer, apparently there aren't any of those nearby. Ikea has ok looking bookshelves that are probably better quality, but they're still particle board and they're way more expensive. We're not really willing to pay sixty-eighty dollars for particle board furniture.

Which leaves us with Walmart. At Walmart I discovered some bookshelves that were not quite such a sickening color; fake oak is not nearly so offensive as fake cherry for some reason. Like the Target shelves they are in two halves, but unlike Target they don't try (and fail) to hide it. Instead they make it look like they really are two pieces that have been stacked on top of each other, and in my opinion the look is much nicer. The shelves looked slightly wider too, which has to be a good thing, right? So we went with those, for the same price as the Target ones. I know Walmart is famous for forcing it's suppliers to cut corners, but I didn't realize how much difference in quality there could be between particle board.

Our other shelves have shown some wear, a little bowing of the shelves but that's sort of to be expected with particle board. They don't necessarily sit parallel to the ground, but they're more or less straight. I've underlined each shelf in green so you can get an idea where these shelves are bowing. Keep in mind, the shelf on the left I've had since college, so maybe five years? The other two are Matt's, he's had the one on the right for about two years, and the one in the middle, which seems to be having more bowing issues than the other two, for ages. So these shelves are doing pretty well all things considered.

We got the Walmart shelves a few months after we moved here. Say September, though that's probably generous. That means tops, they're three and a half months old. Here's the Walmart shelves, with their underlines in teal.

In that short period of time the shelves are visibly bent, and I think the second shelf up on the right is actually resting on the Ikea magazine holders. I don't deny that they're overloaded, but ALL of our bookshelves are overloaded because we still don't have enough space for them. And seriously, three and a half months? I'm impressed, I mean, how exactly do you fuck up particle board? Is it eighty percent glue? Matt and I have always been resistant to buying from Walmart for many reasons, but we caved when we realized we were going to have to settle with crap quality wherever we went. How could we realize that the quality of crap could span so wide?

Parking Peeves

Sometimes parking is difficult. Some people are lousy parallel parkers for example. It takes them twenty tries to get into a huge spot, and by the time they're done I can almost forgive them taking up two spots with their little Neon or Corolla. Other times parking is badly designed or plotted out, either making it difficult to maneuver or hard to tell where it's ok to park. For some reason, the parking spots in front of my building are only marked about a foot and a half back from the curb. I can't think why they decided to do this, I'm guessing someone thought it was less ugly, but it's pretty idiotic. For most of the year it's ok, although I've seen at least one car that regularly manages to "not notice" where the lines are and parks any which where. In the winter however, after the first lasting snow, parking becomes a several month long nightmare. The little yellow lines appear to be exactly as long as the lingering snow, and it's impossible to tell where to park.

But that's kind of excusable, what amazes me are the people who park badly intentionally. I'll never understand what it is that makes someone think it's ok to double park. I realize that not everyone is a wonderful parker, and sometimes, even if you're just brilliant at parking (and what a skill that would be to brag about) it's just not possible to pull in at a good angle. But have we heard of backing out and straightening out people? Seriously?To my mind it is simply impossible that the above driver failed to notice that he/she was parked that horribly. They just didn't care. Fortunately another car was able to squeeze into the half space next to it, but forcing someone to do that is incredibly inconsiderate. I think in this case this was just laziness but there are at least two types of intentional double parking. The first is vehicles which are simply huge, and unless they're absolutely perfectly parked (and sometimes not even then) they're going to spill over into at least one extra space. Although I don't think much of gigantic cars, at least I can understand that in this case it's not necessarily willful thoughtlessness as it is a natural consequence. Of course if they'd get a car that didn't take up that much space, chances are they could get more than 6 miles/gallon too, so maybe there's more than one kind of indifference here.

The second kind of double parking is the jerks who really really really like their car, and think that, because their car is expensive/pretty/new they are somehow entitled to two spaces. I posted this picture a while ago, where we saw a silver car that believed this.

We saw this two weeks in a row, but the second week someone had decided to shimmy their way into the left hand half-space, and so Matt decided to park in the right hand half-space. Fantastic. Here's hoping the jackass learned something.

No-Smoking Laws

I've been in debates before, over how constitutional it is to ban smoking, whether we really want the government interfering in our lives over things like smoking, because who know where it could lead... I agree that the laws are a little questionable as far as whether smoking is something we SHOULD be banning. But I don't really care.

I hate smoky rooms. Maybe it goes back to the fact that I grew up in a bar, and had to deal with it all the time as a kid. They banned smoking in Eugene about ten years ago and it was beautiful. True, many of the bars complained that all their customers drove over to Springfield, where they could light up in peace, my mom even claimed a few bars went out of business because of it. I never bought it though, "look at Doc's Pad," she said. "Mom, that place sucked," I pointed out.

But I have to admit that for me, this was never about what was good for the state, or what was good for small business owners, it wasn't even about good health. I'm selfish, and banning smoking made my life far more comfortable. So when Ohio put it on the ballot, I didn't even struggle with any ethical implications, or even possibilities of Big Brother getting a better hold. I was just glad that I'd be able to go into a restaurant and sit down to a meal without choking to death. For you smokers out there who think I'm being selfish (which I've already admitted) and say, "Hey, you already had a nonsmoking section," I'd just like to make it very clear that those shitty plastic partitions never kept me from inhaling your poison.

Since I'd already moved south a ways when the law passed, I didn't get much chance to experience the difference. Tonight Matt and I met some friends at the Kennleworth in Lakewood, and my first impression on going in was: wow, no cloud of smog... how nice!

I guess the bottom line here is that regardless of the law, not allowing smoking in a particular area is a sure fire way to increase the enjoyment of that space. If it's not a law, it's difficult for many businesses to make that decision, because they risk losing customers, but since it is the law, they don't have to worry about it, and suddenly their business, which through that fog of stink seemed automatically seedy and low-class, is a notch or two higher on the classy scale. Even my mom, smoker since the age of 16, admits that she enjoys spaces without smoking better than spaces filled with smoke (unless maybe that's something I dreamed, inspired by wishful thinking), the only thing she doesn't like is having to go out in the rain to have a cigarette. One reason why she'd never move to Ohio. Of course, if she'd just quit, it wouldn't matter either way.

*All photos from Flickr and linked to their home.

Winter Break

Now that the semester's over I've got a bit of free time. I say free, but most of it's already spent, like credit, with tasks I've been putting off until now.
The most obvious one is cleaning. The condo has rarely been clean since I've lived here (though it truly has been once or twice) but it's not been clean at all since Matt moved in. This isn't to say that he's more of a slob than I am (he's not, trust me) it's just that the two of us now have so much stuff that we can't seem to figure out what to do with it all. Things were slowly getting better but over the last couple weeks my areas specifically, my studio desk, my side of the bed etc. have been piling up as I've not taken the time to put things away. Now that I have a bit more time I can get caught up on laundry and get my work space cleared once again.

It will be nice to have a clean living space, but this is less pressing than a few projects I need to complete. One is the Vindicator website. I've been meaning to get this started for a year and a half, and now I finally have the time and the lack of excuses to hopefully get it up and running. Once I'm done with that I've promised to make a website for Matt's sister Jen, who knits funky-cool to elegant purses, scarves and accessories. If I finish that and still have some time left over I'd like to start redoing my own website. I think the basic look is ok for now, nice and simple, but it desperately needs a logo of some kind and the gallery is badly in need of updating.

I'd also like to start cleaning up my computer desktops, and synchronize my laptop and desktop as much as possible. Matt just purchased a 500 GB hard drive and is making a larger server out of it. Once that's done I'll back up all the data on both computers and be better able to figure out what should be on which. I'll also be able to finally sit down and rip all our music onto the server and my desktop so we can listen to anything whenever we want. Matt says he can hear the difference in quality between CD and mp3, I guess I can too, but I don't really mind. We'll be keeping the CDs anyway, but this way we'll have semi-permanent versions of all our music.

The Colors of Failure- Part II

The continuing adventures of making a black dry erase board.

I'd determined that my studio space was seriously lacking by not having a dry erase board hung somewhere. After a disheartening search of existing dry erase boards I discovered that none were cool enough: I wanted one like the kind they hand in Caribou.

After letting the third coat of magnetic primer dry, and deciding my board would never actually be able to hold magnets, I started with the blackboard paint. This was a thinner consistency than the primer, and went on in watery blue streaks that I was a bit doubtful about. I washed my paintbrush again and waited hopefully for it to dry.

Now on the can it says to use a roller to apply the paint to the future blackboard, and I'd meant to do so, but after pouring the paint I realized that I was out of roller brushes. So I ended up having to apply the paint with the same paint brush I'd used for the primer and wasn't all that surprised when it didn't dry right. It did dry black, so at least one worry was gone, but it also dried in brush-stroke groves that reminded me of a vinyl record. I debated whether to run out and get a roller for the second coat, but in the end I was too lazy, and instead I applied the second (and last) coat very very gently so as to avoid the brush groves as much as possible. After rinsing my brush and other supplies again, I waited some more.

I was happily surprised that the final coat was, I considered, smooth enough to actually use. So I waited another day as recommended for a full dry, then redrilled the holes in the corners, where the paint had closed them. I hung the board and tested it out.

#1: The staff at that particular Caribou are all liars! Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh, but they were certainly wrong about the dry erase markers being just normal dry erase markers. I initially had some difficulty finding light colored dry erase markers; since most dry erase boards are white, naturally most of the pens to write on them are dark colors. Eventually however I found a pack of four neon colors. I tried them out, and to my dismay, the colors didn't show up at all. Actually that's not entirely true, when wet you could see wet streaks, and when dry, if you leaned up close, you could see the faint transparent lines. Picture transparent neon green on a blackboard... yeah... that's helpful.

#2: The staff at Caribou are STILL liars, because not only does the ink not show up, it doesn't wipe off. So now I've got a blackboard (which presumably you can write on with chalk at least, though I didn't try it out, so who knows) with ghostly lines in transparent dry erase ink that is stuck there permanently.

I suppose I could have just used chalk, but my chair is at the same level as the black-white board so it would just have erased the marks I made when I spun it around and it hit against the board. In retrospect, I realize the same thing would have happened with the dry erase markers (had they actually worked correctly) so I can't be too upset about it really. So instead I set about decorating it in barely color.

The end result actually looks kinda neat on camera (without the flash you can barely make out the color differences) but it is fairly useless as a message board. My cats on the other hand, are finding that it makes an entertaining passage through to the back of my computer.

Otherwise, I guess I just have a new piece of non-functional art hanging in my studio. Non-functioning art that in normal light looks just like a piece of wood painted black. Ah well, we'll call it "contemporary" or "conceptual" and maybe someone will give me a show...

The Colors of Failure

If you've ever been to Caribou maybe you've noticed the black boards they have on the wall, announcing their coffee specials and daily trivia? Or maybe not, I know I mostly didn't pay any attention until one day when they took it down at the end of the evening to put up the next day's trivia question.

I'd always assumed they were writing on the chalkboard with chalk... silly me. Turns out their chalkboards also work as dry erase boards! Then I assumed that they were using special dry erase markers, but no they assured me, they were normal run of the mill dry erase pens. AND it's magnetic, which is how they stick all the coffee magnets to it. I realize I'm a bit overexcited about this, but I thought this was just the coolest thing ever, or at least the coolest thing involving dry erase markers.

Fast forward a few months, I'm sitting at my desk thinking I'd like to write myself a list... and post it... somewhere convenient. In fact I realized I need a dry erase board. So I set out to get one, but I'll admit I went in knowing I wasn't going to buy one. Because I wanted a BLACK dry erase board.

After a very quick search that revealed, as I suspected, that there were no readily available black dry erase boards for sale, I decided to make one. I started by measuring the space where I intended to hang it, and getting a piece of plywood cut to fit. After drilling holes, I put it up to make sure it fit right.

Then comes the fun part right? I went out and get some magnetic primer and blackboard paint, using the excuse that it would come in handy later when we make a puppet theater (more on this later I hope) and yes I realize that puppet theaters need not be either magnetic or blackboardy but it's called rationalization people. I put on the first coat of magnetic primer. It was rather bumpy and rough (but then it is primer) but I told myself it would work out ok when it was finished. So I washed my brush and waited for it to dry. After a half hour I was able to try it out, the results were a little bit disappointing. The magnet I tried did seem to have some attraction, but not enough to keep it from sliding off, just enough to make it seem sort of reluctant to do so. So I put on another coat. And washed my brush again. And waited for it to dry again. There really wasn't much discernible difference in the magnet's enthusiasm. I checked the label and found out that they expect you to need something like eight coats before it actually does anything, and even then it's not all that dramatic of a magnetic effect. I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising since they must do it by putting little ground up bits of iron into the paint... that can't be all that strong I suppose. So I put on another coat. And washed my brush. Again.After the last coat dried, I could just barely get the magnet to stick, so long as I held the board at a slight angle. I was sick of magnetic paint at this point and although the can claims it's enough to cover a large wall with ten coats, my can was half empty. So I decided the next day I'd start on the blackboard paint.

*Caribou image taken from flickr.

Continued tomorrow, because I'm being called away for the night...

Pet Peeve

One of the things that really bugs me is when I see someone pull into the intersection when the road in front of them is full of cars. Inevitably, the light changes, and there they are stuck in the intersection, looking indignant at the cars now honking at them for being in the way. As though they couldn't possibly have seen it coming, and as if it couldn't possibly be their fault. At times like that, I really wish there were a cop somewhere nearby.So I HAD to take a picture at this dumbass cop who committed the same crime. Well done boys, nice to see our tax dollars hard at work, clogging up traffic.

On an entirely unrelated note, while I was at the same intersection at CSU I took this picture and thought I'd share, just because it's kinda cool.