Hairless Retred

Mammals without hair are wrong. Just. . . wrong.

Except for this guy down here. He's my favorite hairless mammal. I swear he looks not unlike the stable guys who work near me at Belmont Race Track.

Put a dingy 99 Cent Store t-shirt and jeans on him and he'd be hosing down the horses with the rest of them. As they're shoveling manure, one hand will say to another, "Will you look at the balls on dis guy!" And they'd all have to look at them because, surely those things don't fit inside a pair of jeans.


You know squirrels? Those rats with busy tails? Well, without hair, they're just rats with thumbs.

How 'bout a de-fluffed bunny? Mostly de-fluffed. Mostly horrifyingly de-fluffed.

I don't think we've had enough bald rodents. Rodents go bald a whole hell of a lot. They're verminity enough as it is just being rodents but then to lose the only thing that makes them less evil.  . .

That's a ferret and a racoon, in case you were wondering.


Do they still serve these guys in McDonalds? I'm sure they're easier to turn to hamburger without all that kangaroo hair getting all over everything.

And finally, the granddaddy of hairless horror. A creature delivered directly from the mouth of hell. I give you-- The Hairless Sun Bear.

Don't look at it for too long. It will devour your soul.

Paddle Ring That I Made

It is very hot and humid and I do not want to leave my bedroom, the only room in the house with air conditioning. I could watch TV and sleep-- and don't get me wrong, there's a lot of that going on-- but that would make me look like the lazy schlump that I am. So I made a ring for no one and for no reason. I call it a Paddle Ring for reasons that are obvious. At least to me.

In my bedroom I had a flower crystal, 18 and 26 gauge copper wire and tools. The tools have names but they are names I have given them because I can't call everything 'thingie' (even though I do). Look, let's do this the easy way. Here's a picture of everything I used to make the ring.

O.K., I think I can give the official name of all the thingies in the picture: Ring mandrel, side cutters, round nosed pliers, chasing hammer and bench block. Gotta say Flatface, my name for the hammer, makes more sense.


Cut, oh, I don't know, about 5 or 6 inches of the 16 gauge wire (do you see a ruler in the picture of all the thingies I used? No. Should I have used one? Most definitely. Do I always ask questions I already know the answer to? Those are the best types of questions). Use the pointy pliers to make a loose loop.

Fit the bead in the loop.

Curlicue the other end.

More than that, dolt!

Both ends.

More! MORE! MORE CURLICUES!!!

Now beat those damned curlicues flat!

While you're at it, beat the loop too.

Cut about a yard of 26 gauge wire and wrap it about three or four times around the flattened loop.

Put the bead on and wrap it on the other side.

Now take all that extra wire and weave it around the two legs of the ring. I use a simple weave because I'm a simple person. A simpleton, even.

See? Simple over and under. Squeeze it tight to make it pretty.

And end it with 3 or 4 wraps around one leg.

Neaten it up. Cut extra wire. Tuck the ends. Shape it up nice then wrap it around the ring mandrel or any appropriately sized cylinder you have at your disposal.

 The End.

Another Box With Pics-- Part Final Finally!

When last we saw this project, I was contemplating burning my fingers embellishing the bastard. In my mind's eye (which is in no way affected by the Bell's Palsy-- unlike my friggin' right eye) I saw myself hot gluing leather to the handles. This is what the box looked like then:

And this is what I had planned to hot glue onto the handles:

I feel as if I should explain the two week gap between this post and the last time I mentioned this project. And that explanation is that I am surely dipping into senile dementia. Firstly, I could not find the box. I thought I put it in the area of my bookshelf designated for projects-in-progress and, when it wasn't there, I figured one of the cats knocked it on the floor and under the bed because fucking cats, you know? But no. It was on the bed, under one of the 7 pillows that live there, undetected. For a week. Because I am not a princess and it wasn't a pea.

And then once the box was found, the leather disappeared into the space known as Safe Keeping. The spool of leather was found in a box of crap under a table in the Craft Room. I saw it and thought, "I'm gonna need this once I find the box. Let me put it aside for safe keeping" and then dutifully put it somewhere safe from me ever finding it.

I found the leather in a bag on the Project Shelf. Since the bag was not see through, I could not see what was inside. Last night my senility prompted me to angrily snatch up the bag that obviously did not belong on the shelf of projects that needed finishing and toss it onto the The Largest Shelf Ever, otherwise known as the floor. Out rolled the leather.

The kicker is-- I didn't use the damned leather OR the hot glue to finish the stinking box. This is because, firstly, I did not relish the thought of burning the hell out of myself using my hot glue gun. But secondly, and much more importantly, the leather thong is round and not flat. It would have taken gallons of hot glue, clamps and patience I am not in possession of to glue the round leather to the handle.

Below are the last pictures of the box project. These pictures are quite shitty. The reason they are shitty is because I am the Universe's plaything. My camera decided that, just for shits and giggles, it would not focus on the thing I wished to take a picture of and instead would focus on the background. I thought of solving this problem by smashing the camera against a wall but thought better of it. The solution I came up with was to use the Macro setting on the camera. Brace yourself for some pretty meaningless close ups.

I have ribbon. I just do. Not much, mind you, but enough to find this ribbon, which matched the colors of the box project nicely. Here is a useless close up of ribbon:

For sure did not want to use the hot glue gun. Sure, most craft people swear by the stuff, but I never learned to control the strings. Also it burns like the adhesive formed out of the devil's sticky anal glands. Instead I used mosaic glue. I could have used Elmer's glue but look at the label--

Can you see it? Says "dries clear" and it does. This would make it the best craft glue in the world. What keeps that from happening is that I can get Elmer's at the 99 cent store for, well, 99 cents. Mosaic glue cost considerably more.

What's next? Glue and roll.

Glue:

and roll:

The finished product

It took me a month. However, if you are not suffering from senile dementia, you could probably do it in a week if you allow proper drying times. If you don't feel like waiting for crap to dry, you could do this in less than a week.

Filled A Few Hours At Mill Pond Park

Mill Pond Park is a park with a giant pond in it. I mean, for a park in the middle of the most populous island in the entire world, it's a giant pond. See?

Supposedly numerous native waterfowl make their home here in this preserve. I did see two fowls,

but only for a moment and then they were gone. No other fowls were found.

But, hey, you know what else was found at Mill Pond? A body, that's what! After the dead guy, a car with a teenager in it was also found. I didn't find any bodies or cars at all. I did find a few flowers.

There was a trail and I walked it.

There was nature.

And reminders of Sandy, that bitch.

It felt as if I was in the middle of nature. . . as long as I didn't turn my head too much to one side--

There was even a mini waterfall.

I did not fish.

All in all, I lovely walk in the park.

I Am Not Home

Today is the fourth of July and I am not home. I am walking a nature trail. I'd say "hiking" but that sounds as if I'm working hard. I will most likely be meandering. After that, I'll be grilling some beer can chickens. One for each of my family because it is a barbecue and the 4th of July and that means AMERICA, FUCK YEAH-- NOM NOM NOM-- GIANT AMERICAN PORTIONS X 2!!!!!!

While I'm enjoying the natural beauty of the United States of America and then stuffing my face full of meat, you can read this special history of the 4th of July post.


It all started when King George thought it would be funny to fuck with us. We was like, oh HELLS nah!

They couldn't beat us because we had the drop on them.

Plus we are just too badass

George Washington used F-35 to shoot the shit out of Cornwallis and then he was all like:

And then, to make things even extra special, Will Smith saved the world.

So let's celebrate!

And remember, be careful out there.