Saturday, November 27, 2010

Xtra Normal

I wanted to try out XtraNormal.com to see how it worked and such. Being short of a script, I dug into the depths of my blog and used my short about buying milk for the sake of drinking it. Some of the punctuation and pronunciation is a bit queer but it works for my first try.



Pretty simple to use.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Thrice for MSL

Music Saves Lives recently gave me the opportunity to art all over a fresh Gibson melody maker guitar. After my work was done MSL got all of Thrice to sign it and the guitar is now up for auction on eBay with all proceeds going towards Music Saves Lives and their great cause.

Check out the guitar and break out the check books, you have until December 6th.



Thursday, November 18, 2010

L 7 Square

Last year I was approached with a proposition to buy a credit card machine so I may charge folks for items me or my band may be selling. It was $300 for the machine(not for keepsies), then $30 monthly for service fees, and then they also took a little cut from each sale. After pondering for a bit and considering, "Well if I sell a shit ton of things then it'll even itself out" I decided to pass. Why can't I just charge people from their cards without all the extra charges? Enter Square.
This is not a commercial for Square, more of a "well looky here" kind of thing.
Square is like if PayPal reached out of your computer and hopped in your pocket. There is a PayPal app for iPhone, but you're still stuck just sending email requests for money like a shy gopher. With Square, it allows you to turn your phone into a credit card scanner and get right in the action..... like a more outgoing gopher, with more friends.

Without doing any research, what I hear about Square is that it's the folks from Twitter who made it and it is boss. You sign up, which involves giving your social (yikes, we'll see if I've been robbed soon) and then right away they ship you a little card reader that you can stick in your iPhones headphone jack. That's right, headphone jack. I don't know how it works but it does. I got to see one in action today. The best part is that the reader is free and there are no processing fees. Just a 2.75% tax on income and that's it. It works just like PayPal and might be giving it a run for its money.....


Monday, November 8, 2010

Come on Cafe

So for a while I got consumed by fiberglass and bondo and any other vehicle "fixer-upper."I started to shape my own motorcycle seat and was super stoked on the whole process. Well as luck would have it the seat I made looked like a pile of shit..... I couldn't even think of anything clever just now, it looked that bad.  Here are some examples.



I just threw up looking at that again.

After that fiasco, I checked out some other methods and decided to dive in. My main goal was for a cafe seat for Max the Yamaha XS360 while maintaining a 2-up seat so I could carry a passenger. The reason I was so fixated on making my own is because no one makes seats for this bike, that exact way unless you want to pay twice and much for someone to custom build one for you. No thanks, I'm kinda handy.

The XS model also has this strange design of having the taillight at the top of the backseat, instead of at the bottom, causing more work when converting to more of a cafe style.

Anyways, the final method I settled on was purchasing a used seat that matched my current, unaltered, seat I had and then simply cutting a chunk out of it and covering it in vinyl. Well guess what, it worked. For any cafe seat enthusiasts out there who are in as much of a pickle as I was, I suggest this method. For all others, you might want to find a nice 1-up fiberglass seat for yourself.


Then a quick drop off to a nearby upholstery shop and voila!

If I learned anything it's to leave the hard stuff up to the professionals. I still kept the original just in case I ever get sick of this seat, but so far I'm happy as a clam. Are clams happy? If they are I share their joy.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Planes, Trains and Galifianakis


I need to get home to see my family but I need help from this kooky guy with facial hair.

I'm still going to go see it.