A Scarf Spectacular!

I often do searches on Etsy to see what the best tags are for my products, which words get the most visibility, etc. While looking to see where my Tentacle Scarf listings were showing up, I found a veritable cornucopia of geekery for your neck. Here is some of what you find when you are searching for a scarf under the "geekery" tab.

First on our list is this lovely number from Creepling:














This is the octopus to my squid :B



Next is an exciting combination of micro and scope by KatyAndZucchini:















From micro to macro, these ants are pretty spiffy as well.


UrbanPrincess brings us some old school pixels:


















WindOfTheStar makes a scarf with a familiar blue box:











This could be made even more awesome by the presence of a Dalek and/or David Tennant (or John Sim).




This next one by Crrysstall goes out to my brother and R. Stevens:












Bacon is now a scarf, enjoy!





The Geekiest thing out there award goes to AlysaMerle's custom work:







Your name in binary! Epic. Only slightly less geeky is the Pi scarf :3






Not seen here are the numerous boobie scarves (numerous!), Doctor Who scarves, animal scarves, and a couple of scoodies which were cute, but I've already spent too much time on this :B

Holy Buprestidae Batman!

Some things just stop you in your tracks. I found myself engrossed in aquakej's Etsy shop while checking on the best tags to use for my items. Here I've been trying to mimic insectine beauty for years, and this woman has simply used the insects themselves!















In addition to just looking awesome, the use of real insects can be environmentally beneficial. Instead of cutting down their land to grow corn or graze cattle, an insect farmer usually requires a rain forest to stay in place. In the examples which I have read, a farmer grows an abundance of the desired insects food plant, and the insects lay their eggs in this patch. Some of the chrysalis' (chrysalises? chrysali? chrysalie? chrysalahhh-haa!) are gathered up to pupate in controlled circumstances while some are left to grow into a wild adult which will later lay eggs in the farmers patch (we hope).
An alternative to this method is to propagate host plants in a more controlled environment and keep a breeding stock supplemented with wild populations. This generally requires a stable stand of native plants including host and non-host varieties (for various reasons, one being so you can control the population growth of the bugs your breeding), and a stable wild population.

Anyway, the jewelry is cool, bug farming is interesting. Check it out :3

More stuff you can't live without :B

As usual, you can click on the images to go to the original listing.




A Beardaclava by Freight. Sometimes this mustache thing goes too far :P









Catnip Eyeballs by Hannapt. I do enjoy a good eyeball. Their shop byline "and maybe a stick too" is also a source of amusement to me.











Princess and Pilot inspired Kokechi dolls by Temple7e. The workmanship on these dolls is lovely. Some folks are even getting custom sets for their wedding cakes o=










I'd also recommend a stop by the Antiquity Gamecrafters on Etsy. They have some beautiful reproductions of ancient games. I wants to play them all! D:

I just bought tea from the interwebs o.O

I know it sounds hazardous. For all I know it could be laced with arsenic, but Teaman has apparently sold hundreds of teabags to people, and it's free (less shipping), so I thought I'd give it a go. I went with the Decaf Chai :B


Has everyone been to WikiHow? It is an excellent source of information you never thought you needed, such as how to make Tootsie Rolls with your microwave, the basics in Lock Picking, or the time honored art of Furoshiki (or how to use a square cloth to carry anything).
I started by looking for the Furoshiki article. Some people have been using the techniques to wrap presents for the holidays, and I was curious. Now, I want to get some silk scarves and cut my hair in an interesting manner :B


Has anyone noticed that you can now click on a link and have it open in a new tab or window automagically?! This has been made possible by using my mad hax0r skillz (aka Bobo the Circus Squirrel telling me what to do) :D

My Brains! My Brains!

They're melting out my ears D:


Goodness, but I'm tired! I spent this evening at the Monterey Bay Aquarium at my apprentice guide training class. I am going to be an apprentice guide :D It shall be awesome. Tonight we got to play with the touch pools. I think I enjoyed petting the urchin the most, but I also learned about handling the animals, kelp defenses, and plankton. Additionally, one of the epic level manager types gave a talk, in character, about working at the canneries back in the day.

I spent a bit more time with one of my group members who is quite young and significantly less jaded than I am. It was kind of a weird backwards mirror. It makes me think I need to be less cantankerous, but it also makes me think of how I was naive in so many places (and still am really) before I went to school o.O
More on this later.

BugsAndMonsters:
I have put a couple of Valentine's Day cards up on my Etsy. Check them out!

More designs to follow.


Beware the thrall of science:
I went to LiveScience yesterday to look at an article about photosynthesizing nudibranchs (sea slugs). While I was there, I became interested in articles about how the particular areas where fat accumulates can have serious health effects, and how cell phones may save us from Alzheimer's among other things.

But back to the nudibranchs (or nudie brancs if you like ;). These are wacky creatures. Many nudibranchs contain stinging cells as a defense mechanism, but they do not produce the cells. They eat anemones and somehow conscript the cells into their own tissues intact! This article describes a new kind of sea slug which scientist have found to conscript chloroplasts (those are photosynthesizing cells from plants and algae). Even more, these slugs have taken the genes to make chlorophyll (the pigment plants use to photosynthesize), and put them in their own DNA. They don't need to eat if they get enough sunlight. All they have to do is get themselves a bunch of chloroplasts and go. They've become the terminators of the ocean!

Funny Things Are Everywhere

I like to look at what people like, who also like my stuff... that is to say; If you heart something of mine on Etsy, I will most likely take a look at the things in your favorites. It often begins a journey through an eclectic and epic series of shops which I sometimes feel a driving need to share.

Exhibit #1:

An airship steampunk grenade! It even has a little wick at the bottom. Tell me that is not made of win?















Exhibit #2:

Molecular model jewelry! It would be cool if they expanded beyond drugs and water molecules. I can think of a few benzene rings which I would enjoy (TNT anyone?).





Exhibit #3:

A magnet set featuring an international man of mystery. I enjoy the bazaar images in this set, but I enjoyed the description even more.








In other news:
I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium tonight for a volunteer informational meeting. I'm hoping that I'll get to be a volunteer guide this next year.

There Will Be Blog

Why Hello Thar!

I once wrote a goal oriented essay about finding a topic for my goal oriented essay. I feel much the same as I try to figure out a proper introduction to this blog, so please bear with me (or bare with me, whatever suits your fancy).

Me:
I am what you might call a jack of all interests. Many things arouse my curiosity. I am also a practicing artist and a pretend scientist - I have degrees in both and a job in neither. As a result, you'll find all kinds of oddball things here. There will be updates from my Etsy shop, notes on what I'm working on, some tutorials (I hope), random musings, and cool stuff I have dug up from the interwebs.


News From BugsAndMonsters:

I just listed a cool tentacle scarf which I'm very excited about. It was inspired partly from the works of Creepling on Etsy and real squid tentacles. I'm working on some more which I will list soon (if I haven't decided to keep them all for myself!).

I also have some other stuff in process: drawings, cards, squids, etc.

I still haven't gotten to cleaning out the sewing machine. It has so much fabric fuzz in there, that I'm afraid to use it at all until I've taken it apart. Look forward to pictures of its innards :D


Cool Stuff:

Did you know that you can download pictures from the Hubble Telescope website? You can get your own free copies of the Deep Field shots, galaxies, cool nebula, or a hovering sombrero. Check it out :3