karbunkl

October 29th, 2014

10/29/2014

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Ten things one has learned over the last week:

* Making discworld-themed halloween outfits on zero budget:
  Is as frustrating as it is fun.

* Kids at public bath houses really should learn:
  more of a song than just the chorus. 

* One should not don a mask when using heavy amounts of spray paint:
  Because it's more fun that way.

* One should not play badminton:
  Because ones' legs won't work the next day.

* One should not play badminton with one's elders:
  Because they will mince you into an undignified puddle of crying mulch.

* One should not watch "The Colour of Magic":
  Because it's terrible. One should just re-read the book for the umpteenth time.

* Exchanging the meat from one's standard burritos for fried beans:
  Is hella more cost-effective and delicious than said meat.

* One should remember to do one's girlfriend's laundry when one has thusly promised:
  Or one will feel alot more guilty than is pleasurable.

* Copper spray paint will not adhere to duct tape:
  Because of physics, one assumes.

* One should stick to the athletical activities one can master:
  Such as Mortal Kombat II and heavy drinking.
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Postal

10/26/2014

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So every once in a while,
I find myself in need of antique envelopes and such. I do have a few lying about (courtesy of my father, the philatelist) but I do consider murdering real antiquities for fun about as morally upright as willfully spreading chlamydia, i.e. it can take years for the disease to kick in but once it does it may prove devastating. Of course I don't mean any and all usage of the items in question; breathing new life into old stuff by using, repurposing and enjoying is a great thing! I mean the kinda stuff where one is making a movie, or a stage play or a drunken brawl of a game night. Events that challenge the sustainability of the things. In these instances I certainly prefer the replikato the brittle, rare, historically relevant artifact.
  So I decided to make a non-STD-ious alternative. I began by grabbing a bunch of german postcards from ca: 1900.  Then I recreated them in photoshop.
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These are the original postcards. The one at bottom right is Swedish, and I didn't care to fix it up. The process was simple and straight-forward, just duplicate them. 
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The third one was a real pain in the lower back, mainly because I couldn't find any pictures in decent enough resolution that wasn't cancelled. I took the long route by editing out the cancellation. Blewrg. 
  Anyhow, now these are ready to be printed onto preferrably aged cardstock and used for whatever. I do need to whip up some era-specifik cancellation marks (I say cancellation alot, because I simply don't know what the heck they're called in english. "Cancellation!" Makes me feel like the entire tool box.) but that'll have to wait until a later date. 

My next project was the business-sized envelope. I've tried before and simply stopped since there is no way of folding a regular A4 sheet into the exact shape I'm looking for. There simply isn't enough paper in an A4 to fold this kind of envelope to exact measurements. Anyhow, I grabbed this beast by the balls and began sketching and folding and cutting until EUREKA! 
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Plain and simply printed out on pre-aged paper, lying on top of several genuine envelopes from the 1920's. Had not my printer been low on ink and had I put some patination time in it, I swear it would be nigh indistinguishable from the real deal.

It's not entirely perfect. It differs some 8mm in width and 2mm in height. The pre-paid postage stamp is obviously not embossed. I find this to be an acceptable compromise. A single sheet of A4 paper folded twice on length will fit nice and snug in there.  This will do perfect for say, containing the will of your unknown uncle Reginald Squarebottom at the next CoC-night. Or if you really take the arts & crafts approach to your wedding invitations seriously.
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Back of same quick and dirty printout. The shape of the "lid" differs from the shallow "house roof" shape of the original. This was the only way I found to make the single A4 suffice into a complete covering envelope.
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Ready to print shape on left, instructions for slow days on right.

I also cleaned up some cancellations(!) and pre-paid stamps and such while I was at it. I'm unsure of the colour saturations and can't really test them out, given that my printer is all out of red and keeps promising it'll have the other colours by next week. Also my screen simply won't be configurated to ICC-prophiles or be adjusted in any way. I think it might have joined a cult or something.   
  Size should be correct to copy/paste/print.
  
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You might notice there are two 20's marks from Massachusetts. Just, you know, pointing that out. Because I'm a nerd. 

So there you go. Enjoy. If you do anything cool with this, please, drop me a line to share your special breed of algidity. 
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First Entry

10/17/2014

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I was born, in the year of our Lord- 1983, unto my pirate mother and forger father. They didn't know what the heck to do with me, so they named me Stefan and fostered me to be the most decent snake peddler that Podunk had ever seen. I quickly left that humdrum life and by correspondence course became a horse. I swaggered across Lemuria for a while, got mixed up with some black market ostriches, and in one fatal mescaline-fueled night broke in to the sausage factory. I lived beneath the mixing vat, feeding on raw sausage spills for 37 odd years.

I am not an habitual liar, but I do dislike writing inane stuff such as my own biography.

This site has been under construction for about one crazy week. It will remain so for some time still. Meanwhile, please browse and enjoy, and give me a holler if you're up for it. 
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    Picture

    Stefan
    Askernäs

    Musings and bumbles. 

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