torquill: I like PIE! (weird)
Hey, SF East Bay locals: I'm planning an art installation at Burning Man. It would require Amazon boxes... lots and lots of Amazon boxes, preferably of various sizes. Collapsed but intact is OK, as they'll be flattened for transport. Can you help?

Also required: wired computer mouses, of any interface type. If they are not already dead, they will be by the time I'm done, so make sure you aren't giving away something you care about. (Ha.) I'll talk to electronics recyclers and Urban Ore for those as well.

If you're of the crafty sort, and can think of a cheap way to create a large, lightable sign that looks like a yellow PayPal/Amazon One-Click button, please let me know... I'm brainstorming on that one. It must stand up to W I N D Y conditions.

Thanks!
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (headdesk)
In my post-Burn fog, I had the "bright idea" of tucking our ticket stubs into the pocket of my shirt for safekeeping. They were next seen as a small, tightly wadded bit of pulp in the lint catcher of the dryer. With a touch of glitter from the holograms. Sigh.

I collect the stubs of the years I've attended, otherwise I wouldn't care. But this time, I find myself in need of one ticket stub from "Rites of Passage", any denomination so long as it's in good condition. Email me a postal address (I'm at foogod.com, user torquill) and I'll mail you a SASE and a heap of goodwill. :)

Please amplify signal as appropriate -- I know there are a lot of Burners among my FoFs. :)
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (challenge)
I've been turning this puzzle over in my mind for about three or four months, but as I finally get to the point where I'm going to have to write the scene, I find myself still at a loss. So, dear readers, I pose to you the following hypothetical:

Too long for lily's -lbc, too long for some friends pages... )
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
I am looking for places to purchase, in a brick and mortar store:

- Golden syrup (aka light treacle), essentially like karo syrup except made from sugar cane;
- Spumoni ice cream for my home freezer.

I haven't seen the former at Cash & Carry, though I'll ask next time I'm there.

The latter may not exist short of driving to a shop that makes spumoni and asking for a take-home, but I thought I'd ask to see whether any of the more niche ice cream manufacturers have hit on the idea of stocking the grocer's freezer with pints of spumoni. Yes, I know I can drive to The Old Spaghetti Factory and buy a scoop at a time, but it's a bit silly to go through all of that if I don't have to.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
I got pinged by a friend who says one of her friends in the Bay Area got caught up in a bad situation and is now homeless. He isn't money-less, however; he's looking for a place to rent.

She says he goes to college in Calistoga, so North Bay would be ideal, I imagine... I don't know of anyplace closer than Pittsburg, though, which is an hour from there. Anyone else have a lead on a room to rent in points north?

Edit: Looks like the house in Pittsburg may do the trick; I'll repost if it's not a good match.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (dork)
If, upon reading the phrase "...it looked like i shot a vulcan in there", the first word-mapping I did was "vulcan cannon", does that make me more or less of a geek?
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (heroes)
We've been offered a promotional trip to Reno (basically we get paid to go) for four days. Is there anything to do there if you aren't the gambling type? It's not exactly a lively town.

We need to know within the next couple of days, I think, though I can probably draw that out. If we wouldn't be bored out of our skulls, it seems like a good deal.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (techie)
I need to do two things:

1) Select any email with a subject line containing non-ASCII characters and delete it. I can do the second operation, but the only way I can think of to ask it to look for anything other than ASCII is to use a regexp of .*![A-Z|a-z|0-9|\!\@\# ... and so on, and I expect there's something more elegant than that. Alternatively, I hear that sendmail can block messages based on non-ASCII text in the headers (including Subject), but I haven't tracked down how yet. Sendmail might be preferable, as the main times I get a lot of non-ASCII subject lines are when the server load is so high spamassassin drops the ball, and adding procmail instructions to that stress might be unkind.

2) Within the message body, find and replace the character  with something ASCII -- a space or a carriage return would be fine. Something about the email encoding from Macs scatters those throughout messages, typically at the end of lines (but not always), and it gives Mutt conniption fits. Would this Procmail recipe do the trick (with a little tweaking)?

Feel free to point anyone here if they can help out. Thanks for any assistance...
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (techie)
Does anyone have a spare stereo component amplifier sitting around? I'm looking for something that sits in a stereo cabinet and hooks into things like CD players and tape decks (once upon a time). It needs to have a headphone-jack-style input somewhere, and stereo output to standard speaker wires; radio tuner etc. is optional. The idea is to plug an MP3 player in, and have the music emerge on regular living-room speakers at a much louder volume. Something from the last 25 years or so should be fine.

We'd love to have one to own, but if all you have is a loaner, that will do for now. Caveat: if you really care about it, don't volunteer it! I don't expect it to get damaged, but it'll be going to Burning Man with us, and playa dust is pervasive and forever. We'll do our best to blow it out with compressed air if it needs to be returned, but it will never be truly pristine again.

Many thanks!
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
First: I still have heirloom tomato plants. They've gotten tall, and a bit potbound, so they should be planted as soon as possible. I know [livejournal.com profile] hopeforyou wanted one (or more?) and [livejournal.com profile] amanda_nye asked me for a good sandwich variety, but I'm not sure how many (they need ten-gallon pots).

That's two or three out of about a dozen I have left, though. One last call before I put them on Craigslist!


Second: If you're wondering why I de-friended you on Facebook (or didn't add you when you asked to be), you may have missed the announcement that I'm in the process of closing out my account there. It's nothing personal -- the only friends I have left there are the ones for which I have no other contact info, and I'm working at getting email addresses and such for those people so I can leave FB for good. Zuckerberg is a bastard who screws over his closest friends, let alone the public, and I don't want any part of that charlie foxtrot anymore.

For a good synopsis of the reasons I'm getting out, read this article. It's the tip of a large iceberg, but it provides a good feel for why some big names are fleeing Facebook.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
My partner [livejournal.com profile] eastbaygreg is still looking for housemates in Pittsburg. Stable income and no kids younger than school age, please; pets are negotiable.

His ad follows:
Up to 3 rooms available in a 4 bed 2 bath house.
Close to BART, all public transit lines, Safeway and other stores.
Quiet and safe dual cul-de-sac neighborhood.
New laminate and carpeted floors. New washer, dryer, and stove/range.
Lifestyle and Polyamory communities appreciated.

High-speed internet and cable included. Shared utilities, usually around $50 a month. Street parking available.
1 month rent as deposit, can be made in separate payments.

No drugs or smoking.

$600 per month for the Master Bedroom
$500 per month for the Standard Bedrooms (each).

Greg and I aren't there very often, so the house tends to be quiet. We really need to fill these rooms... if you know anyone looking for housing in the area, drop me a line. Signal boost appreciated.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
When the tenants moved out of the house last week, they weren't able to take one of the cats with them. Chessie has been living largely outside for the last few months, as she dislikes other cats (I think she doesn't like conflict over space and food and such). However, she adores people; she's been friendly with almost everyone I've seen her interact with. She's very sweet, soft, and fluffy; I'll try to take my camera over in case I can grab a few pictures of her, but I'd describe her as a longhair pale tortoiseshell, with one half of her nose grey and the other half a pale orange. I'd take her in if I could, but we're truly full up here.

If you know someone in the Bay Area who would like a people-cat, who doesn't have many (or any) cats in residence, please pass this on. I suspect that she would be content to stay indoors if she didn't feel that other cats were driving her away. She's so friendly and sweet-natured that I'd really like to find her a home rather than just handing her to the uncertain fate of the county shelter. (I'm sending email to a couple of other adoption agencies around here, looking for tips.)
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (servalan)
[livejournal.com profile] sojournscoffe is moving out of a three-bedroom house in Pittsburg starting tomorrow and ending Saturday evening... and so far, it's just her and me. Which, with physical concerns and kid issues and the need for someone to do the directing means effectively (no offense) just me. I can't shift a full three-bedroom full of Stuff all by myself, the week before school starts.

I need help with moving. Really, seriously. I don't want to work myself into the ground before classes start on Monday, but there's no money to hire anyone, and she needs to be out by the second because we've scheduled professionals to fix up the house.

This is my partner's house, so I have a vested interest in getting this family moved out in an orderly (and timely) fashion. Is there anyone out there who can help for even just a few hours, especially on large items? I can provide transportation if you don't have a car -- we just need able bodies.

Please signal-boost this, too. Thank you!
torquill: The dough has gone to war... (baking)
I need local (East Bay, preferably; I'm in central Contra Costa) gluten-intolerant or wheat-intolerant people to take broken loaves that I create during testing. These are entirely edible, and though most aren't yet perfect by my standards, they are a step up from the usual GF fare.

They need to be a) able to pick up or receive bread in central Contra Costa or make arrangements for transport (I'm not driving to Berkeley once a week just to drop these off), and b) willing to fill out a couple of questions about each one, so that I can improve my recipes. The bread will be small loaves missing an end, usually, or an odd (small) number of rolls, and I can provide basic instructions on how to thaw them if frozen.

If you know anyone who fits the bill, have them send me a message at spammo_hung at foogod dot com. I'm not currently looking for wheat-eaters to take these, as they aren't as good as what's on store shelves (and they're so much better than the GF options) so I'd rather they go where they can do the most good. :)

Please signal-boost. Thank you!
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
Does anyone know a good silversmith who does lost-wax casting? There's a pendant I want, but it looks like I'll have to have it custom-made. (Relatively) inexpensive would be a definite plus.

Edit: Looks like this one will have to get put on hold. Commissioning a pendant would run me at least $250. Crucible classes cost $350 or so. I can get precious metal clay (thanks [livejournal.com profile] unseelie23) for $25, but I have no way to fire it, as I doubt I can get a consistent temp of even 1300°F for 20-25 minutes (they say you can do it on home gas stoves or with torches, but how do you hold it in place, let alone make sure the temperature is correct?) so I'd need access to a kiln. Which I don't have. Sigh.

Everything costs too much.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
Anybody familiar with patent law out there?

Never mind, I'm pretty well convinced that a patent isn't what I want. Carry on... :)
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (dork)
As some of you know, I'm writing a cookbook. Unfortunately, while I know a great deal about gluten-free bread, I know next to nothing about submitting a manuscript to publishers and evaluating potential offers. I think that if I'm at the point of putting "pen" to "paper" on this, it's time I start considering what format a publisher might want, and how to make it appealing to them.

So I ask my multi-talented friends list: Have any of you been involved in getting a how-to book (anything from how to do Europe on 3 euros a day to how to make your own siege engines to, well, a cookbook) from handwritten material to hold-it-in-your-hand book form?

I'm hoping that someone out there might be able to, if not offer some advice on the workings of the publishing industry, at least offer the name of a good book on the subject. :)

Thank you!
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (Default)
I am currently looking for a couple of things. Does anyone in the East Bay, who would be able to set up a fairly easy transfer, have:

- un-crushed two-liter bottles, with caps, or
- sheet styrofoam, enough to create an 9"x12"x1" layer (doubling up half-inch will do)?

I'm willing to wait for a bit, if you are in the process of collecting these things, or would need to fetch them from another location. :)

Thank you!
torquill: The devourer of worlds is not impressed. (devourer)
Perhaps I'm a little bitter, but I'll call this therapy (with a dash of sanity-saving humor thrown in).

Would anyone else like one of these shirts? I'm going to open a cafepress store, and I can order many as easily as one. Sold at-cost.

The design... sometimes the old jokes still work. )

Edit: Ordered. If you still want one, let me know, but we won't be able to share the ($5.25) shipping. Shirts are $21.99 plus tax and shipping.
torquill: Art-deco cougar face (dumb)
When you have a project which really needs doing, but you've just hit the wall -- writer's block, overwhelm, or simply total disgust every time you try to look at the thing -- how do you deal with it?

My usual method is strategic procrastination: go do something which rests my brain and makes me feel like I've indulged in something I want to do. Then, when I no longer mentally retch at the idea of working on the project, I go back and crank on it. So I'll go off and garden, or watch movies, or read, for a few hours or a day... I don't lose touch with what I'm supposed to do, I just take a brief vacation with the knowledge that I'll get back to it when I can.

It seems to work, but I'm curious whether anyone else has a different method (perhaps more efficient, or less likely to earn manager skepticism) for harnessing wayward brain cells to the task at hand.

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