Moem's Journal
It's not Myspace...wait, it's not even LiveJournal.
Recent Entries 
readme.txt
Hi! You've found me. This is kind of an experimental / placeholder journal, since the way LiveJournal has been changing recently worries me.
You can find me there under the username m03m. That's m-zero-three-m.

Since I'm (for now) primarily an LJ user, these entries have been copied from there. Some have even been copied from MySpace first!
That causes some problems with linkage. And if there's something about site changes and other ongoing events that makes you go 'huh?' because it doesn't seem to make any sense, it's probably about LiveJournal, not Scribbld. I apologize for any confusion and other kinds of inconvenience.

Oh, and copying the entries from elsewhere means losing all comments, as well.
25th-Oct-2009 08:36 pm - Weekend project, continued
kladderkatje
This morning I finished the second chair. Then, I tackled the couch. Much harder in my opinion, as the shape isn't as defined as that of the chairs, I didn't want to take the legs off, and the armrests can be laid flat so it doesn't even always stay the same shape.
The result looks a lot more ... nonchalant. Still, I'm happy. I got rid of the dreaded orange and the chenille plaids I used to hide that (which weren't up to the task, and were starting to wear thin and to shed turquoise fluff all over the place).
And the new colours go well with the painting that's hanging above the couch.

Just two pics, shown at a moderate size, so I'll leave them uncut.



Click makes bigger


Click makes bigger
24th-Oct-2009 09:34 pm - Weekend project
kladderkatje
On Friday, I suddenly decided to re-upholster my chairs and couch. I'd bought really good (and not cheap) fabric especially for that purpose, over five years (and one couch) ago, but never got the necessary Round Tuits, mainly because I had planned to print a pattern on part of the fabric first.
I decided not to do that after all, and use the fabric as-is. Much less work, much less chance of messing up and wasting hundreds of euros' worth of pure wool fabric, and I can always do patterned cushions if I end up wanting the pattern after all.
Click here for exciting pictures of a chair )
19th-Aug-2009 09:26 pm - Back from summer camp... and here's Leela
kladderkatje
Our hacker conference / geeky summer camp was a whole lot of fun. Hard to believe it's over.
I'll be writing more about it but first I want to tell you about a fun project I did: a Leela costume.

Leela is a character from the cartoon Futurama, drawn by the same guy as the Simpsons. She looks like this:

leela

leela
When she smiles, which is a rare occurrence, her eye is an oval shape.
Click to see how close I got! )

All in all, I had a lot of fun making this... and wearing it!
23rd-Jun-2009 01:23 pm - I designed a T-shirt to promote menstrual cups...
kladderkatje
I guess that makes me an activist! (The actual file looks better than this preview.)
http://6dollarshirts.com/submit_a_design.php?view=submission&id=1245754442

Here's a preview pic, for those who do not feel like clicking links.

shirt

The text reads: 'Join the Smug Sisterhood. Cups are second to nun!'
If it doesn't win, I'll find another way of making it available. If it does, it'll get printed and be amazingly cheap.

It seems that commenting, as well as voting, helps the design have a better chance to win. Thanks to any and all who have helped!

31st-Mar-2009 10:34 am - Creativity at large
kladderkatje
No matter how much we like to complain about today's society, people are still doing fun and creative things. Some of my favourites (see BookCrossing) use one of the 'old' activities and combine it with teh internets somehow. Nice new ideas sprout from that union all the time.
One you may or may not have heard of is yarnbombing. That's a kind of knitted graffity: people knit (or crotchet, I suppose) something to display in the public space. Like a colourful, cosy pyjama for a tree or traffic sign.
Sounds funny, I hear you say. Do people actually do that? Well, it appears they do and here's proof: a yarnbomb that I spotted in my city.

Don't you love it when people just get out there and do something to make their own environment more friendly? I sure do.

yarnbomb

10th-Mar-2009 12:57 pm - Recycling for fun and profit
avatar met molen
I've recycled some of my used greeting cards into magnetic bookmarks, using some magnetic tape, Tiny Stickers from the BC Supply Store and a bit of packing tape for extra shinyness and durability. See what you think.
The nice thing about these is that the magnetic tape makes them snap shut (ever so slightly) around the page so they never slide out of your book.



Click for larger size.
28th-Jan-2009 08:44 pm - Look what [info]stoneshop made for me
kladderkatje
It's posted on [info]amphibilove , right here. And it's better than a bunch of flowers.
24th-Jan-2009 12:29 am - Writer's Block: DIY
motor in wadi
[Error: unknown template 'qotd']Hard to tell, I like fixing things, especially using stuff in ways it was never intended to be used. I cut up old motorcycle tubes to make nice sturdy rubber bands. Stuff like that.
But the first thing that comes to mind is when I was riding a moped that needed its carburettor cleaned on the way, and after I took the lid off the floater chamber, I found that the screws were so bad I would never be able to screw them back in again.
So I found a piece of wire that was lying around (there's usually something or the other that you can use if you just look around for a while) and tied the little chamber shut with that. And hey presto, it worked.

Man, that moped was a piece of crap. But I got home that day.


18th-Jan-2009 02:22 pm - New(t) posting in Amphibilove on LJ
kladderkatje
Two videos I just made!
Check them out.

Cre8tive icon, because I actually edited the videos. A bit.
I'm sorry about my read sweatshirt reflecting in the glass, though.
18th-Jan-2009 02:03 pm - New(t) posting in [info]amphibilove
kladderkatje
Two videos I just made!
Check them out.

Cre8ive icon, because I actually edited the videos. A bit.
I'm sorry about my red sweatshirt reflecting in the glass, though.
7th-Jan-2009 04:56 pm - It ain't over 'till the fat lady...
kladderkatje
...runs out of eggs.
New posting in [info]amphibilove .
13th-Dec-2008 09:45 am - This year's Saint Nicholas 'surpreezes'
kladderkatje
...as mentioned in my previous blog about Saint Nicholas day's traditions. (Some of you may remember last year, when I made a Big Tit.)
We're celebrating a week late this year, because some in our group are celebrating with family on the proper date; but never mind that, it's still fun.
Here are the 'surpreezes' (phonetic spelling invented by [info]yokospungeon ) I made this year. There are small gifts hidden inside, and each one has a little poem attached.
surprise!

The polystyrene mouse contains a packet of sparklers, that'll come out when you pull the tail. It's not that weird of a gift because I know the giftee loves them.
The zebra is a plant watering can, wrapped in zebra patterned paper with some extras taped on, and there won't be much left of it when it's unwrapped; that's why it's nice to have a picture!
The cardboard saw is marked  'eyebrow saw', and has a poem to explain that the receipient is getting a handy tool to prune her husbands very bushy eyebrows; inside is a tiny pair of scissors (which was on her wish list). Making fun of people is part of the tradtion; Saint Nick can be humourous or gently teasing, he's never really mean though.
[info]stoneshop  made a surpreeze for which the receipient will need an angle grinder to open. There was welding involved.
*rubs hands in glee* This should be fun!

28th-Nov-2008 10:12 pm - Why it's nice not to live in a 'real' house
avatar met molen
...but in an old office building.
It means you have space enough for things that would have been difficult elsewhere. Like a sauna.
Not only we have a sauna, and it's actually in what passes for a bathroom around here (and which is bigger than most people's living rooms, and some people's houses), we now also have a place where you can sit and relax with a drink in between the various stages of a sauna bath.
Here it is: our Tropical Beach Style Relaxation Lounge.Click to see. )
29th-Aug-2008 09:19 pm - Diner à deux
foto
... in a romantic setting: out in the parking lot behind the building we currently call home.

Stoneshop is working on the car again. Don't ask. But dinner was nice.

dinner for two

click for full size
26th-Aug-2008 10:41 am - Waiting for the car to harden
kladderkatje
Yesterday was tinkering time again. [info]stoneshop had been busy fitting a new (or rather, newer and sans rust and holes) mudguard to the car.
My car is a Citroen C15 which we lovingly refer to as the Paint Can, because it's often used to transport paint, but it will also carry as many as ten banana boxes of books around with no problems.
It runs on LPG, which makes it one of the cheapest possible ways to get around. So, even though it's not as young as it used to be, the Paint Can is going to be around for as long as we can manage to keep it legal and safe.
Of course, this is an older car of a French make, which means that it's prone to rust.
There's this old joke of French car makers employing very, very skilled painters, who work together in pairs, spraying the paint at each other in opposite directions so it collides in mid-air, and thus build a car without actually needing any metal in between the two coats of paint. There is some truth in that.

Removing the old mudguard exposed some problems... or rather, some challenges.
We found some holes that allowed water into one of the hollow spaces of the car. Not good. I sprayed Tectyl inside, through the holes, and onto any rust that I could see; after letting it dry, I sealed off the holes with bitumen kit and pieces of plastic cut from the top of a Chinese takeaway food container. I couldn't help singing 'Fixing a hole, where the rain gets in' while working on this.

Stoneshop also discovered that the frame the left headlight unit hangs in was badly rusted, so that it had come loose on one side, giving it more freedom to move than it ought to have. This seemed undesirable and it would probably get worse. So we decided that liquid polyesther resin would be needed to repair that. Of course, it was Sunday so we could not buy any.

So yesterday I got some from the shop nearby, and got to work.
Now I love working with polyesther resin. You mix a bit of hardener in with the Golden Syrup-like liquid, and then you can make almost anything out of it. You can pour it into a mold, or brush it onto something. If you want it to be strong, you use the fibreglass mats that come in the package as reinforcement. Entire boats can be made this way.
I cut some parts so I'd have them handy, and mixed the resin.
First, I soaked all rust that I could see, so it would be sealed off from water and air, and thus stop rotting away.
Then, I applied the pieces of fibreglass, and liberally soaked them in resin too, so they turned transparent. I used up all of the resin I had mixed and glued everything together with it.

Then it was time for tea while the resin hardened. It took about 20 minutes to harden all in all.

I think that it turned out beautifully. Today I'm going to put the headlight unit back in and see if I can put the whole thing back together again. This part of the car is probably going to outlive the rest of it!

Oh, and the new mudguard looks très shiny. Too bad it makes the rest of the car look so matte and weathered  ;-)
15th-Jul-2008 10:58 am - My latest T-shirt
kladderkatje
This one just arrived from Vistaprint.
I was wondering how their prints would look on black shirts, the answer is: not great. It's not a big deal because the shirt was cheap (one of those 'try one free' deals, where you have to pay for postage and handling and end up paying a reasonably low price, which does not equal 'free', but still equals 'reasonably low') but it's not something I would gladly have paid more for.
Still, I'm wearing it today.
The toothless tiger (nothing a bit of correction fluid couldn't fix) is one of their standard designs; the text was found in many places on the internets and goes: 'I can only please so many people a day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.'



In other news: I'm recovering from a bad cold and will finally be able to start my latest project tomorrow, if the weather permits. I hope it will.
17th-Apr-2008 06:48 pm - Last post before the Convention
molletje leest
I'll be off to Rubberchicken's place in an hour. Tomorrow morning we fly to London for the International BookCrossing Convention. I've heard  the weather won't be all that good, so I've taken my precautions.
Fellow conventioneers, 'tis by my Brellycumber thou shalt know me.



We'll do our best to keep you all posted!
25th-Feb-2008 12:05 am - Haiku
molletje leest

Morning: wakes me up
Evening: puts my soul to rest
Tea. Always on time.




tea
19th-Feb-2008 12:53 am - Oops I did it again
kladderkatje
I couldn't help myself and just had to order some stuff from Vistaprint again.
Of course, if you use the Very Very Special Offers Just For You - Hurry! that you can get by e-mail, the prices are quite reasonable. [info]edko66 had forwarded me some of the mails (for some reason they'll only ever send me the American offers, no matter how often I try to tell the website that those aren't the one I want), so I could simply pick the best offers.
The best offers happened to come with free picture uploads. Good moment to make some new BookCrossing postcards to tuck into books, send to other BookCrossers or sneak into the Free Postcard-racks in OBCZs.
And perhaps some new stickers for labeling books would be nice, too.
So here's what I came up with:

BookCrossing card

BookCrossing sticker

For less than 10 euros I'm getting 100 shiny full colour postcards, and 140 'return address' stickers with rounded corners.
All for the Greater Good of spreading the words, of course!
11th-Feb-2008 06:42 pm - Sewing project #2
kladderkatje
(Warning: anyone who can actually sew will find this laughable and/or pathetic. I can't sew my way out of a wet paper bag if my life depends on it.)

Today I made a tablecloth from two metres of fabric that I'd bought at Ikea. It's a thick cotton fabric and it's printed in a nice fifties-style pattern. I love that retro look, it goes well with my stuff. Here's what it looks like:

Click makes big
(click to see what it actually looks like.)

The first project got done as soon as I got my sewing machine (an old Pinnock from Australia, as described here. I'll just pretend you've all actually read that) and was a scarf/balaclava thingie (I don't know the proper word for it but it's neither a scarf nor a balaclava) out of tiger-patterned fleece, to wear on the motorbike.

The Green Machine is performing well, it's heavy and sturdy, if it does something odd I can usually figure out what to do. This is my kind of sewing machine. Even if I can only sew things that are straight and can be laid out flat.
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