NDFDA-TFS

Not-Designed-for-Disassembly, That's for Sure.
The need for urban living space and curiosity killed the printer. After being moved around from apartment to apartment and between three cities four times, it was time for my seven year old printer to go. But to go where? The thing still worked (unfortunately), but a free-ad on craigslist showed that nobody wanted a perfectly good printer. Where square foot in my Toronto apartment is about 4 or 5 dollars a square foot, it was actually costing me money and space to hang on to the beast. So what do you do with a decent printer that you no longer need? You take it apart!

It took me about 3 hours over 2 nights to fully take the bastard apart. I found a few interesting things inside the printer, but I think the most ridiculous was a huge 1/2" felt pad on the bottom of the housing whose sole job was to soak up excess ink that arrived via a tube. No wonder I always ran out of ink so quickly!

So THAT's were all my ink went!

I also salvaged a few freebies from the inside, including 4 motors, a really shiny inanimate steel rod, and some gears. Random? yeah......it is.

There were a few parts that I just couldn't take apart no matter how hard I pulled and smashed. Ultimately I found an approximate 38 screws, 50+ plastic parts, 30+ metal parts, 6 parts that I just couldn't figure out how to disassemble/destroy, and 4 motors that I will probably fashion into another robot in the near future.

Printer carnage.

7.11 Pingu - Eskimo Disco

No one can resist Pingu, emo penguins (@ 3:05 of the vid), and really, any type of dancing claymation.

Copy e'vy'ting!

Painting that I got in Hong Kong. Real (toxic!) oil painting, real smile, real e'vy'ting!

As some may know, or little will know, as probably nobody reads this......but anyway, as some may know, I spent two months over the summer working in Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen itself is an interesting place itself, and I'll probably talk more about it over time as I run out of ideas, but I wanted to mention this little unknown village called Dafun Village (30 minutes beside Shenzhen). Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to hit it up while I was there, but it is definitely on my list of "stuff to do if I ever make it back into China before I die" list.

Basically, Dafen Village is a village that exists purely to create "bootleg" or copy paintings. The village boasts 600 art-packed stores, 8000 skilled artists (which is pretty much the make-up of the village's population), and pumps out 5000 copy Mona Lisa's a week. The paintings that some of the artists produce are actually really amazing quality. Although I didn't get a chance to check out the village, I did get a chance to bargain the socks off of some guy for a few paintings (which I'm sure are from Dafen). I've yet to figure out who the painter is, but I picked up a couple of his paintings, or at least copies of them, to give out to some family and friends.


Check out neat vid.

Sea and Cake - Good enough for cruise ships and probably for your parents

I'm just waking up from my night after going to see the Sea and Cake at Lee's Palace, and seeing them live confirmed that they did indeed sound like rocking cruise ship music. Unfortunately, I was still a little embarrassed and self-conscious about my new crappy camera and I didn't bring him out last night, but I'll post this vid up here instead.

An aside: Is it just me, or does the singer kind of look like Sting, the guitarist looks like his favourite concoctions include vinegar and baking soda, and the drummer? Well, he looks so damn happy that he gets to drum. Man, they rock.

I wish I had brought my camera out last night, but if you're looking for something to give to your parents this upcoming Christmas, I'd recommend the Sea and Cake to transport them to visions of shuttle board, cabana boys, and seagulls.


designed by Ryan Noble, Kangaroo Press;
photo from Layout Workbook, Kristin Cullen, p183

"A Carnival of Attention Grabbing Festivities"

I came across this video recently and it basically sums up one of the meetings that I had about a packaging display that I'm currently trying to wrap up for a client.

If I hear, "Can you make this bigger?" or "Can you put this top and center?" one more time......I'm going to start whipping out the FLUORESCENTATOR and STARBURST DUST. Actually, I should've done that in the first place, it probably would have saved me a lot of time and hassle going back and forth.

On the plus side with all these last minute changes and resizing of random product facts, virtually all white space has been eliminated! ya! One point for me.

www.whoneedsdesigners.com

first post - lam + kam kam!

Finally got my replacement camera today! My last camera busted out on me back in April and was totally unreliable and deadweight during my HK, China, and Thailand adventures over the summer (don't even get me started on how much of a deadweight my Thinkpad became when it copped out on me one week into my travels). Unfortunately, Fuji Film decided that it was more economical to get me to pay for a recert. camera than to fix the one I sent for repair. Unfortunately again, the model that they sent me - although supposedly the next model up from mine, is very plastic-y and feels like it could break any minute.

One of my theories is that when Fuji was working on the J10 (the one they sent to replace my last Finepix 460), they accidentally sent phase one CAD files to manufacturing - hence the shoddy finished and fitting plastic parts. My second theory is that they got cheap and figured that glamour shots for marketing are taken from the front, and thus that is where the only quality piece of brushed metal is located.......oh well, good job Fuji for at least "attempting" to fix my last one.

In any case, I'm pretty excited that I at least have a camera now. To break it out, I took a picture of ZAK. I made ZAK tonight after a few glasses of wine and a potent margarita. It was sort of a stupor, improv craft session that I had on the floor in the middle of my apartment.

ZAK is short for muZAK (and Zak Morris) and holds my tunes. The industrial felt that I used kind of looks and feels like rat fur, which I think gives ZAK a bit of ratty character.

ZAK keeps the tunes hawt.

I wonder what my next stupor, improve craft session will make me?