Whee.

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15 May 2009 @ 12:18 pm

Whee.

Wednesday: mood was crap.
Thursday: mood was good.
Friday: mood is sinking again.

Yes, I love being me. The job is tough and the hours suck but the fringe benefits are pretty damn good, most of the time.

In other news, barbecued some chicken in my slowly-evolving-but-quickly-reaching-godhood 'signature sauce', and it was amazing. Grilled some onions to go with it, and glad I did because they were great (gotta find a better way to do it, though). Gonna use that sauce for the upcoming Rib-Off 2: Electric Barbecue party.

The hose outside my apartment has been leaking for something like 4 months. They finally came to fix it yesterday, and had to actually come inside and cut a hole in my wall to get to the problem. Thankfully, they installed an access panel in case it ever has to be worked on again, and it's actually very small and covered by my coat rack. They even cleaned up their mess, I was impressed.

Dianna is putting the finishing touches on writing down the crochet pattern for the Cthulhu Ski Mask, so hopefully we can make a few bucks selling it when she's done. I don't expect much, but anything is more than nothing.

typsie found a new link to it today, and it lists me as the "site admin" for my blog. Ah, the 'net, just one big game of Telephone.

Speaking of which, is there anyone out there that can read a crochet pattern? We'd like to get an outside eye to try and follow it and make sure it's right, when she's done.

Tags: a day in the life, cthulhu fhtagn, food porn, mental state

Current Music: Rob Zombie - Run Rabbit Run

18 comments | Leave a comment

18 comments —

( 18 comments — Leave a comment )

deusinnomen on May 15th, 2009 07:21 pm (UTC)

I'd offer up my wife, but she's more of a knitter. Could certainly ask her, if you wanted.

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typsie on May 15th, 2009 07:23 pm (UTC)

I know

moonchylde crochets! Not sure if she reads patterns though :D

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praenomenal on May 15th, 2009 07:26 pm (UTC)

Ohh good thinking.

All us knitters SOL...I think we should try to convert it :-D

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moonchylde on May 16th, 2009 01:04 am (UTC)

I can, indeed, read a pattern, though I still need assistance now and then from my Happy Hookers Handbook. I am EXTREMELY willing to play guinea pig for this experiment. ;) hehehe

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staxxy on May 15th, 2009 07:28 pm (UTC)

while I do not read crochet patterns, I know plenty who do, and I could happily send them her way via email. If nothing else, I am sure they would be tickled to get to be the first one to *see* the pattern. ;)

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harriet_m_welsh on May 15th, 2009 07:49 pm (UTC)

I can read it, send it on over when you're ready. teri at the black drop dot com.

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gonzo_md on May 15th, 2009 08:56 pm (UTC)

special sauce, eh?

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archmage on May 15th, 2009 09:34 pm (UTC)

See what you miss by not coming down here? Some of the best BBQ you'll get in the PNW, if nothing else.

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gonzo_md on May 15th, 2009 09:35 pm (UTC)

you're damn right. i'll get down there again sometime, maybe this summer.

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skeletoncrew on May 15th, 2009 09:12 pm (UTC)

If you guys set that pattern up as a nice PDF file, www.etsy.com should be a good place for selling it. I'm always finding cool patterns there and it seems like a good way to makes some bucks.

BTW if you google "Cthulhu ski mask pattern" most of the hits on the first page are related to you guys. :)

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archmage on May 15th, 2009 09:33 pm (UTC)

Ha, yeah, it's crazy. I've been keeping track of the major hits. Just amazing. And yeah, was thinking of doing it through Etsy, so, thanks for the reco.

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skeletoncrew on May 15th, 2009 09:50 pm (UTC)

My Lovecraftian.etsy.com shop does decent business there considering how rarely I update it. Interestingly enough most of my Lovecraft business there is international, so an item like a pattern that can just be e-mailed should do well since there will be no "Oh it costs too much to ship," factor.

I'm not sure what sort of pricing is typically done on patterns there, so I'd recommend poking around Etsy a bit to get a sense of it. Looking at this seller might give you a good baseline. Not crochet of course, but I think the sort of person that would buy a dissected fetal pig pattern would probably dig a Cthulhu ski mask, and she's certainly sold a lot of patterns there.

And I just realized that if you search "Cthulhu" under patterns you'll find a crochet cthulhu baby bib pattern...you really can find anything on Etsy.

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thndrchld on May 16th, 2009 02:29 am (UTC)
Read a crochet pattern

I can read crochet just fine. You can send it in any file format you like and I can execute it in a weekend (usually a day) to make sure it executes what the program says it does. You know the address. When it goes up for sale, I'll send you the bucks. I know another crochet nut that'll love making them.

You do need to think about...I buy one pattern and make 50 of them and sell them at the local con. Do you want to deal with the copyright enforcement? Or liscense it for that kind of thing?

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kidmissile on May 16th, 2009 05:39 am (UTC)

If you need another person to read her pattern, I'm willing to do it. =) Yeah, Etsy seems to be a good place to sell the pattern. I don't have much experience selling on there, but I think the only hitch is that if there is a large initial surge of interest, she needs to make sure that the pattern item is listed in large enough quantities or relisted often (or multiple times) so that when people search for the pattern they don't see that it's all sold out. I'm an Etsy noob, so there may be a simple way to manage that, just something to look into as she considers selling in that venue.

For the grilled onions, what don't you like about how you do it now? I just slice them into thick sections, lightly brush with oil, season with salt & pepper, then grill over direct heat. I try my best to keep the rings together when I flip the onion slices, but I often lose the smallest center rings through the grate.

I did see one method on a grilling show where a guy just slices the onion in half, dumps a bunch of minced garlic and a pat of butter in between the halves, presses the halves back together and rolls the whole thing tightly in foil. Then grill over direct heat, even dropping the foil packet onto the coals for a while too. I'm planning on trying that this weekend.

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archmage on May 16th, 2009 02:19 pm (UTC)

I don't think quantity is going to be an issue, as we're going to try and make it a PDF, mostly likely, so there'll be no physical thing to run out of.

This was the first time I actually grilled onions, so I ended up slicing them, separating into rings, and tossing them onto a little tray I made out of foil, and just tossing that onto the grill. it was effective, but a little unwieldy. Gonna have to try that 'whole onion' thing, that sounds fab.

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kidmissile on May 16th, 2009 05:09 pm (UTC)

Oh, I knew it was going to be a PDF, it's just with respect to items such as PDF patterns listed on Etsy, once you've sold one, I think you have to relist it (because there is I think a $0.20 listing fee up front for each item you sell). What I've seen some sellers do is list the same item multiple times (for example), but then it will become a question of how many to initially list versus the anticipated demand. Does that make sense?

Otherwise, you'd just have to make sure you stay on top of relisting as needed in case you sell a lot quickly. Of course, this is assuming that you do decide to sell through Etsy and that there is a high demand for the pattern.

Actually, after thinking about it for a bit, one of the advantages of selling through Etsy is the exposure—with the growing buzz about this mask, you may not necessarily need them for that at this point. One thing I've seen some small businesses do is make a nice little Web page for the product (make sure it's well-designed for search engine indexing and also link to it from your original LJ post), then integrate Paypal "buy this item" widgets on the page. I believe there are tools in Paypal to manage your sold item orders as well as your virtual inventory of the PDFs, so "restocking" will be trivial. That'd be something to look into if you haven't already done so.

Hope everything goes well with this project!

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archmage on May 16th, 2009 06:56 pm (UTC)

And honestly, the PayPal thing may be the way to go, in the end. It's still up in the air. Of course, there's also the whole "once it's out there, it'll get passed around" thing. Still, figure to make a few bucks up front before it's everywhere, and in the end, it's fun.

Yeah, here's hoping!

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voicetrack on May 16th, 2009 02:38 pm (UTC)

My wife Stacie can read a crochet pattern.

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