Month: March 2008

Crankypantsing

Comcast Part Deux

Shelly

So I finally got a bill from Comcast. Due on receipt. Fuckers. But that’s not the mind-boggling part.

First, the number on the bill is not actually the number for paying bills. If you call the number on the bill, you are directed to hang up and call another number. WTF?!

Second, if you try to pay via the web, you are asked for a PIN. Comcast will send you the pin. Via snail mail. Why? My bank allows me to set up an account online, without doing any fancy-schmancy postal mail BS. EFS (or whatever it’s called now) let me set up an electronic notification and loan payment account entirely online. I can make a car payment without a PIN. But nooooo, Comcast requires a PIN, and they will only send it to you via snail mail. WTF?!

Third, when I called the second number, I was given three payment options: #1 cable, #2 phone, or #3 internet service. I have all three, so can I just pick any of them? When I chose option #1, my call timed out and I was dropped. When I chose option #2, my call timed out and I was dropped. When I tried option #3, it didn’t drop me, but I was on hold for almost an hour. An hour wherein I had to listen to a loop of some jazzy elevator interpretation of some 80s song I don’t recall the name of. There should be a law against that.

Fourth, I still had a fucking headache, and the annoyance factor and the elevator music did not help!

I’ll say it again: Comcast, do not make it difficult for me to give you money!

Art, Bookarts

A Note on Paper

Shelly

Whenever I make a book, I list what kind of paper I’ve used. I didn’t this time, though, because I used a bunch of odds and ends. There’s some 90lb cream Stonehenge and some 140lb Cartiera Magnani hot press. There is also some buff Arches cover that I’ve been carrying around since school. I trash picked it in one of the printmaking rooms, I think. Some of the Arches had test images printed on it, so there will probably be found art in some of the spreads.

I’d forgotten how much I like the texture of Arches cover. It’s a nice weight for bookbinding, too. I’ll have to pick some up.

Art, Bookarts, Photography

Burlap and Bell

Shelly

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Burlap and Bell
four-needle Coptic binding with hemp twine and burlap over Davey board covers
8 x 6 inches, 9 signatures of 2 sheets (36 pages)
5 March 2008

I didn’t take any detail photos before covering it, so I can’t show the horrible stitching. After looking at a different tutorial, I think the problem was either operator error (always a possibility!) or the instructions I used were not clear. Meaning, the problem was not with the binding itself, but that I did it incorrectly.

The burlap cover I added isn’t perfect. The corners are wonky, and I haven’t added end papers yet. That would’ve been easier to do before the fact. I’d also intended on wrapping the spine, to mitigate the vertical fanning, but didn’t like how that looked. I’m sure to be doing a lot of collage work across the page gutters, and hopefully that’ll stabilize things.

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It’s all a learning experience, right?

Anyway, to answer Christina’s question, the tutorial I used was from the Volcano Arts website. This two-needle Coptic tutorial from Emma Jane Hogbin seems to be pretty straightforward. I’m going to try it next, though adapted for book board, not wooden covers.

Crankypantsing, Photography

Glass

Shelly

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I came home today to find that a carpet cleaning company was steam cleaning the Stompy Girls’ apartment. The smell of cleaning chemicals is pretty obnoxious in my apartment. I can only imagine what it smells like upstairs.

O gross.

And it’s raining. And the temperature is dropping. And that means, we might get more ice. Fun!

Crankypantsing

Ice Pick of DQQM!1!!!

Shelly

I have a splitting headache this morning, bad enough that I’m seriously considering going home. So, of course, my across-the-aisle cube neighbor, who rearranged her cube last week, has decided to put up a clamp light. A 2,000,000,000 watt clamp light. Its blinding evilness is poking me in the eye. Turns out, that’s not the sort of thing that actually helps a headache.

Kill me now.