A Proper Pirate and Parrot

If you want to catch the attention of the ladies on Hallowe'en, nothing is better than a pirate costume. Here you see me demonstrating this in my new pirate captain costume. How do you know yo no soy marinaro, soy capitan? It's the epaulette on one shoulder and the parrot on the other.

I made the epaulette from two blue and gold curtain rod tassles from the Dollar-It glued to foam core board.

The parrot is Carlos, one of the puppet members of Astronaut Love Triangle. He didn't mind being sewn to an old blazer and having the name on his hat covered with a skull.

A hole in the jacket underneath him allowed him to talk freely. He said quite a bit more than "aawwk, pieces of eight, pieces of eight" and got asked to dance more than I did.

p.s. For a Halloween Party treat, check out my most famous post ever, Tasty Dessert: Toxic Waste.

Uses for Binder Clips - Cutening up a Party Dress

One of Manon's Halloween costumes wasn't quite right. "What does this need?" She asked me.

This question is always a no-brainer. "A shorter hemline," I said. And this time she agreed. How do you quickly shorten a silver party dress? Binder clips of course.

And if you have any clips left over, you can straighten out your lapels.

Found Urban Art

We scored some found art a couple of weeks ago. Unlike typical "found art" these were not objects that were created with no artistic intention and later somebody decided they had aesthetic appeal. These were created with an intention that they be art, but the painter decided they had no value.

Or so I am told.

Kaye's uncle Ian is cleaning out his garage. Besides containing many typewriters, the garage also contained four paintings that Ian rescued from a curbside garbage pile several years ago. He spotted them while driving. He stopped, had a look and then checked with the homeowner.

The homeowner told Ian that a former artist tenant had left a stack of paintings behind when he moved out and said to just get rid of them. The homeowner/landlord said he'd kept a few, but didn't want the four on the curb.

So Ian took these paintings home, put them in his garage and now they're here on the living room wall.

There are more detailed pictures of them on Flickr.

We are curious about who the painter is, but I don't want to try too hard to find him because maybe he'll want the paintings back. On the other hand, I'd love to see the paintings the landlord kept.

Dubious Uses for Binder Clips: Boot Storage

Unclutterer posted a reader suggestion this week for people who need to store lots of boots: Use binder clips to suspend up to 5 pairs from a hanger. The reader, Lisa, recommends putting fabric between the teeth of the clip and the boots to prevent indentations.

I love hanging things and I love using binder clips, but I cannot support this binder clip use. As the clever commenters point out:

• Even with fabric, the clips will probably permanently indent leather.
• The point of being an "unclutterer" is to not have so much stuff that you need to hang 5 pairs of boots from a hanger.

Storage is not a big issue for my 2 pairs of boots, but I can tell you that I'd make a huge mess if I started storing them in a clothes cupboard without putting them in plastic bags first. And if they're in plastic bags, no need for binder clips.

I suspect these people hanging their boots in the closet don't live in winter geography. I'd wonder why they have boots at all, but they make it clear that it is not about necessity.

Wikihow has some better ideas for boot and shoe storage.

Learning French on Dalhousie Street

Tonight I was walking along Dalhousie Street and I noticed the sign for this bedding store: "mon lit mon lit mon lit". I repeated it (in my head, I think).

Then across the street, I saw the gift store called "Mon Cadeau".

And two doors further south, the kitchen store at Dalhousie and Murray, "Ma Cuisine". What's going on here? I wondered. Some new branding thing?

Then I realized what was really going on and I felt much better. Some influential person in the Market area has decided to help us Anglophones learn the genders of common nouns.

(Maybe this could go on the Best New Idea for the City ballot up against the count-down walk lights.)

New Product: Ginger Concord Cubes

Remember Ginger Concord Tea? I've been thinking about it a lot. Thinking about how to make it with less effort and how to make it when the grapes are long gone from the vine outside the house.

Happily, the lab has come up with an answer:

1. Fill a blender with grapes and small chunks of ginger.
2. Add a little bit of water.
3. Blend to a mush.
4. Pour the mush into ice cube trays.
5. When the mush is frozen, transfer to a container.
6. Put the cubes in the deep freezer.
7. When you want a pot of Ginger Concord Tea, put two cubes in enough water to fill your pot.
8. Bring to a boil.
9. Strain into your teapot or directly into cups.

My Mojo Scarf

Yesterday I mentioned that Manon is excellent at choosing gifts. Actually, "excellent" is an inadequate word in this case. "Inspired" is a better word. Last winter, she decided she would knit me a scarf for my birthday. In the set of all gifts, there isn't much that is better than a piece of clothing that someone has knit for you. (Of course there are wonderful things of a similar rank, like a crocheted afghan for instance.)

But, here's where the inspired part came in and Manon took it beyond excellent: She rounded up items from a whole bunch of my friends and knitted them into the scarf.

Now, anywhere I go with the scarf, I have something from about 20 of my favourite people (including cats). That is why I call it my Mojo Scarf.

I do not knit, but if you do, and you want to bowl someone over, or as the French say, make them all ému, a mojo scarf is just the ticket.

Uses for Binder Clips - Gift Cases

Manon is excellent at choosing gifts and excellent at packaging them. Here is the clever packaging she came up with for a mixed cd. Two 12cm x 12cm cards advertising art shows at Gallerie La Petite Mort and 4 binder clips.

Clever, I say

Japanese Guys who are working to save us

Yesterday's post may have given you the idea that the Japanese are unified in a desire for the extinction of humanity.

I must assure you that this is not true. For example, Hiroko Yoda, Matt Alt (possibly not Japanese) and Tatsuya Morina have just published Yokai Attack: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. I have not read it yet, but it claims to be a guide for surviving attacks from Japanese monsters.

I've never seen statistics on this, but I suspect that more monsters come from Japan than from any other country in the world. This makes Yokai Attack! much more valuable than a guide book on how to survive Canadian monsters.^{[Note 1]}

You can learn more about it here.

Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide
by Hiroko Yoda (Author), Matt Alt (Author), Tatsuya Morino (Illustrator)

Format: Trade Paperback
Published: October 1, 2008
Dimensions: 192 Pages, 5.25 x 7.5 x 1 in
Publisher: Kodansha International
Associated ISBNs: 10:4770030703; 13:9784770030702

---

^{Note 1:} Although maybe someone should write the Guide to Surviving Canadian Monsters, it would only take about 30 minutes, most of that for the illustrations.

• Ogopogo: Pull out a camera and it vanishes.
• Loup-Garou: (a) Figure out who the Loup-Garou used to be, then (b) draw blood from it.
• Sasquatch: see Ogopogo.
• Windigo: (a) To avoid becoming one, don't eat human flesh. (b) To keep them away, perform an Assiniboine, Cree or Ojibwa Wendigo Ceremony.

3 Ways Humans are Hastening the Apocalypse

I'm grateful to all of you working against global warming, the massive extinction of species, and the threat of pandemics. I know you could use more help from me, but I have at least three other dangers out there that nobody else seems to be concerned about.

1. Cyberdyne and their Evil Beginning

The Terminator series got it wrong. Cyberdyne did not start the evil robot rebellion in California, they are starting it in Japan. They have announced they will soon be mass-producing a robot suit called Human Assistive Limb (or HAL) designed to help people with physical disabilities. They don't mention if HAL has vocal capacity, but it's not hard to imagine myself in my 70s and confined to the suit:

"Open the bathroom door, HAL"

"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that."

Many news sites and blogs are reporting that Cyberdyne is also behind the creepy Repliee R-1 android series, yet oddly, Cyberdyne's official website says nothing about the R-1. [For example, The Sun: Boffins unveil life-like robogirl]

Have They Not Seen Conquest?

Reuters reports today that a tavern in Japan is using monkeys to serve customers.

The Kayabukiya tavern, a traditional "sake house" north of Tokyo employs a pair of Japanese macaque called Yat-chan and Fuku-chan to serve patrons.

The younger of the two monkeys, Fuku-chan, hands out customers a hot towel to clean their hands before they order their drinks, as is the custom in Japan.

Yat-chan, who is about 12 years old, also hand out towels but serves drinks as well.

Anyone familiar with the Planet of the Apes canon knows this is how it starts. First, monkey waiters. Then chimpanzees helping out as personal servants. Orangutan babysitters. Gorrilla soldiers. Then they rebel, some of us survive in the wild to be hunted as slaves, others survive in the tunnels below New York until they blow up a doomsday bomb and it is all over.

Don't be fooled by the cuteness!

3. Messing with the Sacred

While I'm sure the Japanese are doing plenty of other things to endanger our future, item 3 is being done by a misguided coalition of experts from the UK, Germany, Sinai and Russia.

What are these dangerous scholars, conservators and curators up to? They are reuniting the entire manuscript of the Codex Sinaiticus in digital form and "making it accessible to a global audience".

As you know, dating from the mid-300s, the Codex Sinaiticus contains the oldest known complete copy of the New Testament. However, this version has marked differences from any version now in use by established religions.

If you are familiar with conspiracy literature, such as Robert Ludlum's the Gemini Contenders, you know that if the wrong people get ahold of an ancient version of the Bible that has something unexpected, like say no mention of the resurrection of Christ, chaos will ensue. Religious war, armageddon, all that stuff.

How can you keep it out of the wrong hands if it's on the frickin' internet?

Accidental Typewriter Art

I thought I had just found a practical way to get three of my typewriters off the floor last week by hanging them on the wall. (I have four typewriters. I know. It's crazy. I am not accepting any more.)

By reading Mae Callen's blog, I learned today that my practical decluttering technique is evocative of Blue Monday Strip by famous kinetic sculpture artist Rebecca Horn.