Plato's Hell

FLATMATE WANTED! $120/w incl. expenses

Where: Chez Homer, Upper Riccarton, Christchurch
Current flatmates: Matt, John and I. You know us. We're cool. We do our own thing but like to hang out and be social in the lounge. I bake sometimes.
When: Available from early December, when Stephanie returns to France.
What we're looking for: Someone cool, mature (ie. able to deal with things in a mature fashion), sociable, responsible (ie. able to pay rent on time and not be a dick about cleaning), and who doesn't mind having the occasional party!

- It's a 4 bedroom house with 1 bathroom. The bathroom has two sinks!
- $120 per week covers the rent, phone, power, internet. Pay for your own food. Cooking is done indiviually.
- Chez Homer is a sunny, warm house. The bedroom is at the far end of the house, it's quiet, away from the kitchen and lounge. It has a built-in wadrobe!
- Communally, there is a TV, washing machine, drier, microwave, and kitchen things.
- The bedroom can have a desk and bookshelf provided.
- Church corner is about 5 mins walk. Church corner has supermarket, shops, bus stops, etc. Bush Inn is also nearby. Uni is about 15-20 mins walk away.


What more could you want! Come live with us! If you have enquiries or want to move in, contact by emailing Rosie, alienorchid at gmail dot com, or texting 021 153 2006, or calling 960 8652.


Check out the trademe listing here for info and photos. (Click here)

x-posted to kaosians and my own LJ.

Crown was fun. Lots of pollen.
I am now rapier authorised (or I will be once I get the paper work sorted)
Tim needs to get me a juicer and a big bottle to put lemon juice in.
I move flats next monday. It will be interesting and time consuming. I am planning on starting packing things up starting tomorrow (today was for sorting out crown stuff).
Flatwarming to be advised.
CF is coming soon. I am very excited.
There is probably more but I can't think of anything at the moment.

A friend of mine sent me a link to an online copy of a Victorian book called Fancy Dresses Described; or, What to Wear at Fancy Balls.

It is mostly for women, but there is a short section talking about men's wear. There's pictures and descriptions for the rest, and I thought some people here might find some interesting inspiration :) Seeing as it is a Victorian book, there are some horrible racial stereotypes, though -_-

My girlfriend and I went to a flea market this afternoon and found these:


Tesla pins! The red one in the middle is my favourite.
( Among other things )

I stumbled upon these two vintage Edwardian patterns today, very lovely and lacy. Imagine either one of these in the softest of wool lace yarn, or possibly silk...

http://www.vintage123.com/?p=1091

Spoiler!



It's deadline day, but I'm still waiting on a final handful of pictures at a higher resolution and am in no terrible hurry.
At the moment we're at a few but respectable twenty pages.

Many of the volunteers from the beginning sent me a Flickr account link and told me to go to town, which I would have loved to do, but I cannot use the images at resolutions to be found on the internet if we want a project of any quality to come of them.

If you or a loved one are one of those who thought you contributed and yet do not see yourself listed, please give me a holla' at kanirakoba at gmail dot com so we can talk 300dpi.

20 pages is small but respectable, however, so we're going to the printers as soon as my final people check in. One of them has the full resolution for the image on the cover, so she's a tad important.

Which brings up a second point. I wanted to purchase the maiden copy myself so I could give it a look through for errors to be fixed before it's released publicly, but because of where I'm located Blurb takes about 2~3 weeks to get anything to me. Wrong side of the planet, apparently.

For those featured and/or those intending to purchase, does the wait outweigh the risk?
I swear I will just die if it's released and someone's name is spelled wrong.

Thanks all!

The newest issue of ConCraft Magazine is now up!

Articles span the scale from Cold Weather Costuming, to Steampunk Fashion, to applying shoes to spandex costumes. We have two great interviews and, by request, more on teaching and construction in this issue.

Check it out today.

Feedback and submission queries are welcome!

Also, if you have a costuming or prop store, drop me a line. I'd love to advertise you as our featured seller in an upcoming issue!

http://www.concraftmag.com

I finished my first project with polymer clay today. It's a bit amateurish, but I think it ultimately came out OK.
( More After the Cut (with pics) )

Etsy Buy Handmade ravenofskys

http://www.ravenofskys.etsy.com


Enjoy!

Friday: went to the A&P show with Lisa, Schmoo and Sophie, forgot my student ID making it cost twice the price, got hailed on . But sophie bought me candyfloss, a chocolate-covered apple and lent me her waterproof jacket. She is AWESOME. All in all it was still fun, and the animals were cute and there was a HUUUGE bull. That evening went to Marsden's party and got rascally drunk. Becca gave me and sophie a list back to mine, ta!

Saturday: woke up in time to sort myself out before James came over and we wandered over to the Dean's Bush market. Got loads of delicious things and fresh fruit and veggies. Came back to have fancy sausages and fancy bread and then fancy tart. Sophie and James performed white whirlwind on my house. A few other people came over and we played board games and tetris and charades and pictionary let off some fireworks which SHOT STRAIGHT AT US!

Sunday: Slept in, did excellent shopping,Schmoo made fishburgers using yummy sole from the market. Bought buckets, stakes, and 80 litres of potting mix from the warehouse and put a bunch of lettuce and tomato plants on the balcony. Went to mum and dad's for tea, helped mum discover trademe (she placed bids on a good dozen fancy tops) and planned a fun camping trip to the west coast at new year's.

Creations By Angelia is Having an Angelia's horses need to visit the Vet sale!! These are Rescue Animals,and very dear and close to my heart! There is no emergency! but they are ready for some "touch up" work. (they are both over 22 years old)

All items listed currently on etsy 20% off listed price, (to be refunded to your paypal at time of transaction) PLUS free Shipping! This is only for Items that are currently Listed at http://www.creationsbyangelia.etsy.com

Here's a new lamp from River Otter Widget Studios, :)Copper base and lots of charm http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34514650

Here is the latest project of mine, titled Valves and Steam can be found here at my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/RiverOtterWidget

My computer died today. It had been acting upf or awhile, and it did it's whole "I'm going to reset now" thing, and then it did it again, and again, and again, across shorter and shorter timespans.

And now it's not going at all, not sure if the motherboard alone is gone, or if it took the graphics card with it as well. Hard to tell.

Anyway, I am now sans computer, which means I am sans torchlight also. This very much annoys me.

Will now have to figure out how this problem will fix itself. My ideal solution is so far beyond my capabilities it's funny.

Anyway, that's all. If anyone has anything urgent for me, leave it in a comment here, also if you post anything important in the next few days, I'm likely to be sparse on my reading of LJ until I get a working computer at home again.

At present, I can't even use the iPod Touch to connect to the net via other peoples wireless, because it ran out fo battery and the charging cable I've got for it is dodgy.

So yeah, life is woe, but I'm having fun generally, so y'know.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked for help putting together a steampunk outfit for a Halloween costume. I didn't have much time/money to do too many additions, but I think it turned out okay anyway. Today, some friends of mine and myself got together for a photo shoot at a local college campus. I thought you might be interested in seeing the finished product, though I do apologize that I'm not necessarily the best model.

( Fairly large pictures behind the cut. )
Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!

I finished my new patch-work winter skirt. I'm thinking maybe I'll be Cinderella with some clockwork mice that do all my work.

The newest outfit for my daughter, for a steamy zoo expedition tomorrow:



The skirt is made from the same pattern I used to make her red and black outfit for SteamCon. The vest was made from Simplicity 2484. The boots and shirt are from Target, although I tea-dyed the shirt from its original white cotton state.

This was the "test run" of the outfit, to make sure the pieces were coming together. Once we knew everything fit and worked with each other, I added some antique mother of pearl buttons to the vest, and some lace to the collar and cuffs of the shirt, but it got too dark for another picture.

( One more picture )

Read a couple of things in the Herald today which got me twitchy.
~~~
One was a reference to the high dollar 'castrating' the export sector. The sentiment I read a lot is: "we need to get out dollar down so that our exporters can make money again".

Well sorry, as a consumer I'd actually like it to keep moving in the other direction, thank you. Why aren't we saying "This could be great for our export and domestic businesses - an opportunity to take advantage of the rising dollar to import the technology and expertise to be more productive*." Why isn't it an incentive to do things better or get out, like it would be in any other market.

*But wouldn't it be great if the government and other factions would devote the same sort of resource to developing that technology and expertise here as they does to trying to manipulate the dollar and thus maintain low prices overseas for our products. And they say little free-market NZ has little in the way of agricultural protectionism.

And while they're busy keeping prices low for overseas consumers it means we're having to pay more for goods. Is that arse-backwards or what?

~~~
The other was this little gem from Kerre Woodham:

There was a time when I was in a low-wage job and not able to pay all my bills on time. Occasionally that was my fault but, really, when you're on $15 an hour, there's only so far you can make that money stretch.

WTF?! $15 a low wage job? Sure it's not high, but it's surely not something anyone I know would dismiss out of hand.

$600pw (40 hours) = $31,200 before tax = not to be sneezed at.

I've gone so far as to check the stats for the June quarter 2009 which puts the median hourly income at $19.47 ($20.53 if you're male, $18.22 if you're female). For 20-24 year olds (which is a lot of the people I associate with) it's $15.34

Bearing in mind the boosts to the minimum wage in recent years (and biased by the youth rate being something like $7.50 when I started my working life) I'd love to know -when- Kerre was earning $15 hour so that I could look up those stats.

So I have to concur that yes, technically $15/hour is a low wage. But practically? I didn't know what to do with my money when I was earning that much, as old LJ entries attest.

For those of you who crochet, and know how to do Tunisian crochet, the newest issue of Inside Crochet (issue 5) has a pattern for a very lovely jacket. I beleive this magazine is a UK publication, but I know I can find it (albeit late) in my local book store here in Ontario. This looks like it may well be worth the import price.

Pictures of the jacket can be found here on the Designers blog:

http://loopdedoo.blogspot.com/2009/11/drummer-girl.html

I love the look of Tunisian crochet, it just takes me forever to do it. Not a speedy project but quite possibly worth the effort. :0)

Brand new Jacket style!!! Tentacle design is on both front and back of jacket!
High quality Alternative Apparel fit fleece l/s zip up motorcycle jacket.
Features double-sided gunmetal zipper on front and 6” zipper at end of both sleeves.
Two inset pockets on front near bottom hem and one inset chest pocket on wearer’s left.
Single gunmetal snap tab closure at neck.
Now you can be a member of the Awesome club!

Available in Unisex sizes Small - XLarge. See em here in my Etsy Shop