nuze of laura mappin

my type of book

By laura on August 25, 2010 8:40 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

take this book to your next picnic!

dip marshmallow type into edible ink and press into graham crackers to make your own messages!

well, ok, the marshmallow letters are actually etched onto the marshmallow using a laser. and the message in the graham crackers is also burned in by a laser. and there's no edible ink here. but it LOOKS like it's typeset!

examine more closely at the Olive Hyde Gallery show, reception Friday Sept 3, 2010 7-9 pm

how it was made

my molecules, where wert thou

By laura on August 16, 2010 10:00 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

take all the molecules that make up me - or you - today. where were they a hundred years ago? a thousand? a million?

berry dial

By laura on July 17, 2010 10:19 AM

for that point when you've stuffed yourself picking them fresh off the vines and you haven't made a dent in the ripe supply.

announcing ----

The Berry Dial!

attach it to your berry vines and dial back their fecundity to match your hunger level!

iPhone/iPad/iPhood app coming soon which senses your hunger level through a tiny sensor you have implanted under your skin; then it wirelessly, continuously manages your berries.

new attachments coming for fruit trees, cacti, and tubers.

embroidered bread

By laura on July 15, 2010 8:01 PM | 1 Comment

this would go well with what looked like someone embroidering a sandwich, which prompted this story.

assistance at the nut house, please

By laura on July 13, 2010 11:03 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I entered the grocery store last night and heard, "Assistance requested at the nut house, please. Assistance requested at the nut house."

I started laughing, looking around for which friends of mine were pulling this off for my benefit when I realized I was indeed passing by the nut display counter and a large tall man was seriously gazing around looking for assistance.

How Did the Person Announce That with a Straight Voice?

and no one else even snickered ...

why pay for milk when ...

By laura on July 11, 2010 10:33 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

printeet.com t-shirt store asks:

my answer:

ok, so their orientation's a little different.
they also have one that says:

my angels

By laura on July 8, 2010 8:08 AM

I had only seen my angels in my imagination until crookedbrains posted the work of Lisa Lichtenfels.

I have about eight of these angels sitting around two card tables in the clouds, playing poker, smokin' and drinkin' - g&t's or whatever's around. a couple are male. every now and then they look down to see what i'm about. on occasion they fight over who has to leave the game to swoop down to stop me from doing something really really stupid. sometimes they don't make it in time.

flaccid poly-blend strap-on

By laura on July 7, 2010 7:57 PM | 3 Comments

ok then. check that one off my list. someone's already done it.

make your own custom adult chocolate mold

By laura on June 30, 2010 10:05 PM

make your own adult chocolate mold!

you know you want to.

be the hit of the party with custom shapes, sizes, angles, and proportions! use it with chocolate as well as jello, ice cubes, soap ... you name it!

I'll take you through the whole process, you'll get to see the machines in action, do some setup, ask lots of questions and get a feel for what's involved so you can come back and do it on your own.

choose a pre-designed adult themed shape (or send me something beforehand and maybe I can get it ready). optionally add your own short word or message. watch your part get cut out of wood on the Shopbot CNC Mill. help prepare the vacuum former to suck a piece of hot plastic into your wooden plug to create a food grade plastic mold. fill it with chocolate, cool, demold, and start nibbling.

you'll get to take your plastic mold, wooden plug, and molded chocolate home with you!

come back and take the vacuum former class and make more plastic molds. or also take the shopbot class and make your own new wooden shapes!

any questions? : )

want your butt printed?

By laura on June 24, 2010 9:50 AM

so I wander over to talk to my warehouse office studio mate to find out more about the great music he's playing and ...

and I am confronted with a pile of ABS plastic faces, feet, and asses - the latter being the most plentiful.

"I'm an ass man, what can I say?" he replies.

asses with half thighs, asses with half-baked torsi, faces with just mouths and no eyes - jobs incomplete as he tests his unique enhancements to his 3D printers.

Eddy Vromen is a RepRapper. he builds his own 3D plastic parts from about a 1-ft cube machine he built from a kit.

usually people build gears or specially shaped parts to hold electronics. Eddy will build your ass. out of ABS plastic. if you let him.

contact Eddy at eddy_vromen (at) hotmail (dawt) com

what if I rent a Vogon poem?

By laura on June 22, 2010 3:05 PM | 2 Comments

prompted by my tweet about my recent Rent-A-Poem post, cereisinger asked:

"Vogon poetry also? Or do I need to visit Rent-A-Wreck?"

to which My Friend Will responded:

Dear Sir:

Since the recitation of Vogon poetry is considered by the Geneva Convention as torture, it is illegal to sell or distribute said material to private individuals.

We feel it our responsibility to warn you about a service you obliquely referred to, Rent-A-Wretch. They are a shadow company operating out of Somalia , led by an international poetry smuggler known only as El Tampon. Most of the examples that emerge from them are badly built or dangerously parsed, and should be avoided at all cost.

On a recent Friday night, for instance, the Stanford Medical Center Emergency Room was flooded by poetry reciters who had somehow acquired a Vogon poem at a kegger and recited it to possible dating material. Only two survived the resulting assaults.

1. If you find a Vogon poem, DO NOT TOUCH IT. Call a qualified Linguistics Professional.

2. Victims of Vogon poetry MUST BE TREATED IMMEDIATELY. Flush with Dr. Seuss, and induce reciting.

3. Remember: reciting Vogon poetry WILL eviscerate your sexual life and may land you in the hospital.

Thank you for your time.

Ford Prefect
Vogon Poetry Defense Consultant

computer monitor droppings

By laura on June 20, 2010 11:08 PM

probably many people living today know how to tell what crawled across your screen while you slept just by taking a close-up look at the tiny little droppings left there.

I saw these little dots for years. finally saw a spider leave a dropping. i suspect it's all sorts of local insects in the night

I don't lick my finger to get the job done anymore, although it's probably inconsequential.

ya know, just like many can tell deer skat from wolf skat, somebody out there can tell daddy longlegs skat from ... moth? ant?

a friend taught me that insect skat is called frass. I just keep thinking fricassee.

another friend suggested that with insect consumption all the rage, I should catch them and eat them. well, I never see them so I'd have to rig up my laptop like so.

My Friend Will ... and Rent-a-Poem

By laura on June 18, 2010 10:38 AM | 2 Comments | 1 TrackBack

on my way home I passed a party rental store but I misread the sign as "poetry rental". I relayed this little detail to My Friend Will, told him how my brain then meandered as if that were real. what if we really Could rent poetry? in my inbox I was later greeted with this - from My Friend Will:

Dear Customer:

Hertz Rent-a-Poem is pleased to announce the sale of our quality, pre-owned poems -- now at lower prices!

These are not stripped down one-liners. All of these poems contain luxurious appointments such as internal subtexts, obscure metaphors, memorable sound bites, and multiple levels of subtle contextual perspectives that will bring a wry smile to your face and impart a sense of your superior linguistic skills.

You will be the hit of the evening when you arrive with any of these. From the subcompact Haiku to the flowing lines of the modern Epics, to the taut, street-wise Slams, you will be the envy of any social situation.

Offer is limited. Only lanky English majors with soul-searching eyes will be considered. You must have an Angst value of 800 or better to qualify. The warranty on these items is limited. There is no claim, express or implied, that you will get laid by using these poems. Any additional work you do on these poems while drunk, such as:

1. Accidentally changing Hopkins' Windhover's first line from:
"I caught this morning morning's minion"
to
"I caught this minion this morning, it's morning's, s'morning...good morning..."

2. Accidentally changing Eliot's "I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas," to "...scuttling across the sores of silent fleas."

3. Accidentally combining poems: "So much ...depends upon...the red wheelbarrow...diverging in a yellow wood...

shall not be covered by this policy.

These poems are sold as is. The usefulness of a Haiku is temporary, and may only last the length of one attempt to get laid. Klingon epic poetry recited at a Superbowl party during a third quarter rout of the local team has been known to be fatal. Please recite sensibly.

make your own intestine tea cozy

By laura on June 15, 2010 10:07 AM

today I will make an intestine tea cozy with C, the teapot owner at an Italian cafe.

it will be lovely, starting off with gorgeous orange yarns and ending up with a special creation to keep the spout warm.

how to join us and more here

cute tap

By laura on June 11, 2010 11:46 AM

found at a new site focused on defaced stuff.

I like the little marks above the tap. indicating hot water?

tool box potato chip server

By laura on April 3, 2010 4:13 PM

so I'm walking out of my laser class into the members' potluck at TechShop when I set eyes on this.

someone cleverly took their latest tool box creation and offered their potluck wares of cheese and crackers and chips from its drawers.

plating these orange/brown comestibles with the green-hint-of-teal shelving system offers an appetizing color combination.

ok, he admits he bought the hardware. but he designed and cut and bent and finished all the metal.

pop rivets, I think he called these. to attach the hinge for the top.

nicely done, eh?

if you want to make one yourself, contact Earl, the maker of this wondrous toolbox at earlgpowell ~at~ comcast ~dawt~ net.

I hear there's talk of adding this as a project class at TechShop.

soooo ... what are You going to use to serve Your next potluck offering?

flamingo music

By laura on March 29, 2010 9:57 AM

my friend was telling me about some flamingo music he heard and loved. he kept clearly calling it "flamingo" and not "flamenco".

he usually knows these things so I started thinking maybe he's talking about some phenomenon like if

you stand on one foot, it sounds different.

he checked his CDs ... aw, sad day. no one-legged musical phenomenon to investigate.

am I one of the many or not?

By laura on March 23, 2010 3:27 PM

just received this tract and immediately wondered, "for many"? I thought he did that for EveryOne.

if he didn't do that for me, then wouldn't I be wasting my time?

one of these helpful business charts came to mind to help me figure out what to do.

metaphorically fertile

By laura on March 19, 2010 4:13 PM

I try to care for this Christmas cactus and it stagnates.

I leave it alone in some half protected spot among the garden flotsam and it exudes its telltale pinkocities.

a friend gave me the original cutting in the late '80's as a parting gift when I moved to California. the plant has lived through more than 20 years and 11 residences, most years not flowering, often being only 5-8 green joints.

the petals don't have the crispest edges. and the plant is slightly affected by some white aphid/fungus/spider mite thing.

but it still lives - and even kinda flourishes with its vibrant fuchsia explosions and robust succulent scaffolding.

I'll take that.

where do new chairs come from?

By laura on March 17, 2010 11:58 PM

whoa, quite a bit of wear there!

now, wait a few weeks (months?) and there should be some little chairs running ... er, standing around.