Our government has actually done something for us. As of this moment, residents of the west coast states can get a free copy of credit reports from the three credit reporting agencies. This is supposed to help us fight identity theft. You can request a free report from each of the agencies once a year and it is recommended that you stagger your requests over the year. Since i have not looked over my credit report since buying my house in 2000 i think i’ll get all three to check for errors.

While spending hours super gluing action figures together i began plans for making a Barbie wreath. One obstacle to making a Barbie wreath is the difficulty in obtaining Barbies. Well, fortunately for me, Seth and Erica were on the lookout a few weeks ago when they spotted bulk Barbies at just $1 each. They picked out a dozen or so and bought them for me and called to let me know about the find. Well, i went and bought the rest of them. The problem is that there was one Ken in the bunch. I didn’t want my wreath to have any man-dolls in it so he became a dog toy.

Barbie bodies are quite a bit longer than the normal action figure so layout of the Barbies and the radius of the wreath had to be different than i had done in my previous project. Luckily, i have a habit of squirreling away even the least necessary parts and pieces because they might be useful someday. Well, the shelves that i made from spools that Angie gave me from the Shipwright’s had some hardware that i saved and i had a few pieces of metal from a project that i did about 8 years ago (no kidding) that i was able to reshape into a large hoop.

The next thing to do was to start attaching the dolls to the hoop. A little super glue goes a long way. Cena was kind enough to brush out the hair on the Barbies which made them so damn good looking that i almost changed my mind about putting super glue in their butt cracks. But the project must go on despite any resurgence of adolescent crushes.

Once they were glued in place they needed to be fully fused to each other. Super glue was then put on every point that they contacted each other and even in their arm and hip joints to keep them solid. Wrapping the wreath with a set of lights adds a festive seasonal flare to the piece. I did experiment with having the lights come from the Barbie breasts on one doll that Marley beheaded. There just wasn’t enough space inside their bodies to have the lights come through. The lights ended up only peeping part way through and instead lighting up their body cavity and showing seams in the plastic and the structural supports inside.

Back in June i posted about two dead birds at Seth’s place. They are still there. Sort of.

Google’s free email service (Gmail) just activated their pop3 access so you can check it with Outlook, Outlook Express, or excellent email programs like Thunderbird. I have a few invitations to gmail if anyone is interested in joining. Just put a note in the comments to this post and i’ll send you an invite.

Using information from a link on fark Cena and I made some containers from vinyl records.

Preheat the oven to about 225. Put a terrible album inside a metal wok, on top of an overturned bowl, or on a cookie sheet and place in the oven. Set your timer for 5 minutes. Then remove the parasitic record and the host vessel and let cool for 10 minutes. Or, you can remove from the oven and shape with your hands. My last attempt i made a template that i sketched onto the record, heated and used scissors to cut the vinyl, reheated, placed in a box i made from a record jacket, and used binder clips to allow the record to cool in place. I should stress that not any old record should be subjected to this torture. Vinyl is pretty dead and should be preserved. But in some cases you can find exceptions…

Bolstered by this success, and armed with a large collection of small plastic army men, cavemen, cowboys, indians, and knights, i set out to duplicate another melted bowl. I was hoping mine would end up something like this…

…but 250 degrees wasn’t warm enough to even soften them. I had filled the discount wok with the plastic men. Sadly they were not all the same color – or even manufacturer – but the mission had to proceed. I turned the temperature up 50 degrees at a time for five minute intervals. Until suddenly some of them started melting like that German guy in Raiders of the Lost Arc. So i lost out on perhaps a dollar and a half worth of cheap plastic that i bought at a garage sale earlier in the day.

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This item really needs no words. But if you want to see the animation and not just my screen captures just go here.

Remember: if you use this product in a public restroom, everyone else in the restroom will think you are a transvestite. Leave the “magic” to the men.

I have a long list of things that i like. I’m into stuff. Well, more than 10 years ago i added a Husqvarna 262 chainsaw to my collection of things. It is one of my few hard-working posessions that still does the job as well as the first day i used it. You know the saying “i’d rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford” – i’m like that about my chainsaw. I’ll drive home and get my saw instead of using the work one when the occasion for me to run a saw pops up. Four pulls and it will start.

It has cut trees on my parent’s lot (what, maybe a dozen mom?) and i took it to Pennsylvania for a paid job at my Aunt and Uncle’s place. By some glances at my life you might think i’m a whacky environmentalist – recycling everything i can, a distain for hunting (but love for the meat), the constant urge to compost… but let me get my chisel-tip chain into some yellow cedar and you’d see a different side of me. I have even transported my chainsaw in my kayak (gasp!). I can’t wait to have a fully healed leg so i can pull on my Carhartt overalls that are so worn they feel like flannel on the inside. Load my saw, some gas and oil, the axe that i bought for $2.50 at a garage sale in the Adirondacks in 1993, the cant hook, and a few plastic wedges into the surplused Forest Service truck and fill the bed with cedar. I’ll have to get the sawdust out of my pockets and boots. The sap will stick to my hands and the smell of the bar oul and exhaust will be on my skin, clothing, and hair.