Monday, May 30, 2011

three day weekend

What kind of a person spends their three day weekend mostly at home throwing away things?

Apparently me, and I am thrilled to finally be doing it.

The truth is that most of what I have been going through is paper. I love paper, I collect papers, I make zines, I pick up free magazines, newspapers and brochures wherever I go. I squirrel these items away, thinking that I may need them, when in reality, when I need something I look it up on the internet. I am still collecting things like it's 1997 and my habits haven't caught up with reality. Until now, hopefully.

I have recycled a big blue recycle bin full of magazines and papers this weekend. I am making piles of zines to donate. I have shredded pay stubs that go back to 1999!

It's feeling good, but still so much to do.

In my files (I cleaned out my file cabinet and reorganized), I found the 8x10 photograph that inspired and was on the first issue of my first zine ever - Frank, Jasper and Me. I don't remember where I got it, but I am guessing the Oakland Flea Market that took place in the Laney College parking lot, but it may have been at an estate sale in Mountain View. Anyway, it was one of the first old photographs of people I don't know that I collected. Of course, now I have tons more.

Someday, when I find all 7 issues of Frank, Jasper and Me I'll post the covers. I really liked them. Each issue had an old pic of two men and a woman. I have tons extra that I never used because friends used to find them for me everywhere!

The zine was just a general pop culture /personal zine and I don't think I ever did more than 75 of one issue. Frank and Jasper were my imaginary co-writers. I really liked having other people to assign stories and "true stories" to. I started FJ&Me in 1994 and did the last one in 1998, I think.

Here is my newly reorganized file cabinet. This is where the mighty archives of the original issues of all Portland created PonyBoy Press zines reside. Behold the majesty:

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend! Back to the shredder.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

summer, it'll be nice to see you

This weekend is usually considered the beginning of summer. Here in Portland, we've had a sunny day and then a grey rainy day - or two. That suites me. I will enjoy the summer when it comes - for a while. I personally think summer is about one month too long.

I hope you all get to have a nice long weekend. Maybe you're going to the beach. I had my beach vacation last week. The mister and I went to Newport, Oregon and stayed in a nice hotel, did some sight seeing, but mostly stared at the ocean a lot from our room. I love the ocean air.


seaview

seabirdies

seaandbird

seasunset

We did get out of the room a bit. Including two visits to my favorite restaurant, Local Ocean Seafood. Their tuna kabobs are my favorite thing to eat.

seafood

seajetty

shark---oregon-aquarium

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, folks!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

spot me a fiver

A couple months ago I wandered onto a website called Fiverr and was completely enthralled.

Fiverr is a site where people buy and sell services for five dollars. It's been around for a while, I guess. Their website lists some of the high profile newspapers and magazines that have mentioned them. But, somehow I managed to never hear about it until recently.

I spent a couple days going back to the listings seeing all the stuff that people were listing. It was so entertaining. There were lots of business type services: voice overs, seo help, html code, photoshop help, video testimonials, logo and banner making. Some of these seemed pretty good for someone who really knows nothing about setting up a blog or making a slideshow. There were also people to pass out flyers in certain towns which seems like a really valuable thing, since no one in any organization ever wants to do that part.

Some especially interesting things I saw the people were selling for five dollars:

  • Someone who will tell you what outfit to wear
  • Someone who will call your phone to get you out of a date or make some jealous
  • Someone who will take a picture of anything you want written on a sign in a number of places: paris, new york subways, hollywood, pittsburg...
  • Someone who will call someone and sing them a song in many different voices, or make a video
  • Someone who will be your friend on facebook or like something or do youtube comments
  • Someone who will do any kind of new age reading you can imagine
  • Someone who will do all kinds of weird performances on video, like singing anything you want or saying anything you want while in a clown costume, with a sock puppet...
  • Someone who will worry for you
  • Someone who will tell you the meaning of life
It's pretty endless what people think up and the entrepreneur in me really loves it and wants to try selling something, but I got enough on my plate. So, instead I bought some things.

I bought a fix for a scratched old photo. The fiverr seller did a good job, the photo is of my great grandparents and it was a copy of a photo and the scratches were beyond my control. I was really happy with the results. And for 5 bucks!


I also bought a numerology reading. The reading was okay. There were lots of things that didn't apply, but one that was really spot on. So, still seemed like a success to me. What'dya want for 5 bucks, right?

I also had a drawing done for me of me. It was done by this artist. Pretty good for five bucks, huh?
I did all of these in March with the idea of doing this blog post and it's taken me this long to do it.

Now looking over the fiverr site I totally want to buy more things. maybe a past life reading, a postcard from some exotic place or some custom fortune cookies.

I love that people can find some niche and supplement their income. And for five bucks it's easy to take the chance on buying something. Let me know if you buy or sell anything. I am fascinated with this website.

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