Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

Postcrossing 350!

Sunday, May 2nd, 2021

Yesterday I received this card, my 350th from Postcrossing:

I’ve been a member now for 28 months, and in that time have sent 371 cards to 42 countries and received 354 from 42 countries. In total 49 countries have been represented, since there’s some I’ve sent to but not received from and vice versa.

People from 248 countries use the service, so I’ve only interacted with about 20% of the possible destinations. The ‘rarest’ for me has been the Bahamas: with only 20 members it was quite unusual for me to have sent a card there! The ‘rarest’ country I have received a card from is the Aland Islands, which has only 33 registered users.

Approximately one third (114) of the cards I have sent have gone to German users, with Russia (46) and The Netherlands (27) next in line. As far as received cards once again Germany wins (with 93 received) and Russia takes second (48) with China third at 21.

I’ve sent enough cards that the duration of international mail can be determined from my statistics, although I expect these are somewhat compromised due to the covid interruptions. That said Australia has an average travel time of 40 days, Japan 15, Germany 12 and the UK only 8. The longest average travel time is Turkey, at an amazing 85 days (based on 4 sent cards)!

The longest time for a receiver to get a card I sent them is still South Africa (115 days) and the shortest was a user in Lichtenstein who got my card only 5 days after I posted it here at my local post office!

For received cards, I got one from Hungary a whopping 175 days after it was posted, and one from Jordan 126 days after. Both of these were long enough that Postcrossing had marked both as lost, but I was able to register them anyway.

It’s not an inexpensive hobby! Each card costs me about $1 on average (including the ones I have printed myself) and international postage is $1.20, so the hobby costs me about $0.96/day on average. The cost is increasing, since as time goes on I can send an ever-increasing amount of cards (I’m at 16 simultaneous now) and I usually always send a new card whenever I can ๐Ÿ™‚

Unsurprisingly the vast majority of cards in the last year have mentioned covid and the effect it has had on all our lives. Some have even mentioned losing loved ones or jobs from covid, and in recent months vaccine frustrations (especially from European senders) has also been common. Postcrossers tend to love travel as well, so a common hope is that we can defeat this virus and people can start traveling again.

It’s still a delight getting every card, reading the messages and looking at the stamps. 350 is a lot of cards to have received (I’m ranked about 3500th amongst USA users) but for me it’s just a start ๐Ÿ™‚

I Painted a Landscape!

Sunday, April 25th, 2021

KLS’s work sent us a canvas and paints. It was to be used in conjunction with an online relaxation event but we were unable to attend due to another obligation. Regardless, I wasn’t going to let that canvas go to waste.

I decided to paint an Australian landscape! Lots of orange and yellow and red then, with a bright blue sky? Let’s see…

I’m not sure what kinds of paints these were, but they had strong fumes so weren’t watercolour. I’m an impatient artist so I applied them alla prima; if they mixed I fixed it as I went along.

I worked quickly, layering on colour after colour trying to reproduce the hues of my homeland. The brushes were flimsy and fell apart as I used them, and I became slightly high on the paint fumes.

I had trouble with the setting sun due to how I was applying the paints. But there’s no mistakes in art, so I forged on. I would revisit this part of the painting many times before it was complete…

The shrubbery was compromised by my brushes. Even the most talented artist in the world would have struggled here. I did my best.

And then, after about an hour of intense work, I was complete. Here’s the finished work compared to the reference image I had used:

You can’t see in the photo but the gray is slightly metallic and reflective. It lends the darker sky in the top right an ethereal quality. Also I’m particularly proud of my detail on Uluru:

This masterpiece is not for sale, and is indeed already proudly displayed alongside another of my pieces. It lets guests know they are walking into a talented home:

Ten Places Iโ€™d Like To Visit

Friday, April 9th, 2021

Adam had a great idea for a blog post: both of us listing (in 50 words or less) ten places we’d love to visit. This post contains mine; read his list here.

The Bay Of Fundy in the southeastern corner of Canada is known for delicious seafood and some of the biggest tidal surges in the world. We were going to go last year before covid changed our plans, and once the borders reopen it’s high on our agenda.

There’s many good reasons to visit New Zealand, but ever since I saw them on TV as a child I’ve wanted to visit Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Imagine an ‘underground’ boat trip lit only by worms! That’s magic ๐Ÿ™‚

The Isle Of Wight off the south coast of England has the worlds largest wild kangaroo population outside of Australia. It’s also a popular tourist destination with sunny beaches, tourist activities and natural beauty aplenty. I’ll go one day for sure.

Selecting a single destination in Switzerland was difficult but in the itinerary I made for our intended trip Zermatt was the destination I was most looking forward to. The reasons for canceling that trip seem silly now post-covid so maybe I’ll visit one day after all?

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto barely needs an explanation. Of everything on this list, this may be the first one I visit.

Speaking of Japan, I’ve always wanted to visit Okinawa! I hardly need to explain my love of Japan, and I think of this as ‘Japan’s Hawaii’ so naturally I’d love to see it for myself.

I’ve always been interested in the Mediterranean Riviera and while France is an obvious destination I’ve already been there so the picturesque Portofino is a natural alternative. I’ve made so many jigsaws of this place, and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to visit…

Gundam Factory is a brand new (in 2020) attraction in Yokohama Japan that I absolutely positively will visit. I guarantee you’ll read about it on this very blog when I do ๐Ÿ™‚

Tasmania has always held a strange fascination to me, and ever since Bernard offered to chauffeur me around in a rented luxury car Hobart has jumped to the top of my ‘Oz capital to visit next’ list! I bet I’ll get sick on the ferry though…

We’ve been to the northernmost point of England, and ever since I’ve wanted to hit the southernmost point – Lands End – as well. It’s a tourist trap for sure, but they also have the southernmost post office on England so I can buy postcards and send them from right there!

And there you have it: ten locations, at least 8 of which I hope to visit within the next five years. Which ones sound most interesting to you?

Letโ€™s Go Sith!

Monday, April 5th, 2021

I made this:

It’s one of many new mosaic kits that LEGO has released. You can assemble one of three images, and I chose Darth Maul.

The instructions say to assemble the mosaic separately as nine tiled pieces with 256 studs apiece, but since this would require having all 12 colours going simultaneously I instead chose to do it by colour.

This way I saw it slowly come together as I worked, and I think I felt this method is much quicker than what the instructions suggest.

To be honest it wasn’t exactly fun, especially when I got to black. I had to place 877 of these identical black studs one at a time! My fingertips were aching when I was done!

All told it took a few hours over two days. Given the tedium of assembly and the (presumed) greater tedium of dismantling it I very much doubt I’ll ever make the other two designs!

It’s bigger and heavier than I expected (but does come with brackets for wall mounting) but looks good from a distance. It would have looked better using the smaller flat pieces rather than studs, but I can see why they avoided that since it would have made disassembly extremely difficult.

Overall it’s more of a curiosity that a success. I don’t think I’ll be buying any more of these, but it does make me more interested in designing a mosaic of my own…

Happy Birthday To Me

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021

It’s my birthday today! I was brought into this world at least 21 years ago to bring joy to my friends and despair to my enemies!

And as befits one of my stature, I received wonderful gifts. A lot of gifts. Too many in fact. Here’s some of them, so I can look back in future years and marvel at the bounty I received.

Let’s get some tedious stuff out of the way first. I got a bunch of games, mostly for the Switch. Many of these I bought myself and KLS squirreled away until today, and I’ll probably be playing them over the next year.

If you think this is a lot… well here are the DVDs!

There’s a story behind this haul: we’ve been doing ‘movie nights’ on Fridays and Saturdays for a while, and despite having a wealth of options available via streaming are stubbornly watching DVDs, mostly purchased for a song ($3.74 usually) from Walmart. Eventually we thought to check Amazon for cheap DVDs (yes, we actually searched for ‘cheap DVDs’) and found a goldmine! Some of those in the photo were under $3!! Yes we’ve seen almost all of them already, and yes many are ‘bad’ films, but neither means they won’t be fun to watch again ๐Ÿ™‚

I got loads of books as well – 15 in total including a few hardcover art books – but that’s boring to most of you so I’ll skip it and move on to the more unusual stuff, like this:

A Pac-Man watch! It’s a Timex digital watch made to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Pac-Man! It’s all metal and has a snappy design and even plays the iconic theme when you hold a button down. I like this a lot ๐Ÿ™‚

I got three boxes of trading cards! The Hook ones are from the movie (that I’ve never seen) that came out in 1991 and include stickers that you may see on a future postcard. The other box are Japanese ‘card + wafer’s for a game series I’ve never played. The cards are plastic with fantastic art though and I like them. I got a second box in a different series as well. (Alas Bandai stopped making wafer cards last year…)

This titanic LEGO kit came from J&J and was a massive surprise since I didn’t even know it existed. A 4000+ piece working roller coaster?!? You can expect a detailed blog post when I get around to building this one!

Bernard sent me these nifty photo coasters, and he was nice enough to include some stylish photos since he knew we didn’t have a printer. They’re extremely well engineered coasters and have already found their way onto our tables and desks!

A surprise gift from KLS was this amazing tiny synthesizer that makes all sorts of groovy electronic sounds and tunes. I’ve only played with it briefly but it seems to have a lot of depth! I’m very impressed so far and looking forward to composing a killer tune on it.

As I said I was spoiled mightily and this post doesn’t even show the model kits (yes plural), the candy (including sent from Australia – thanks SMC!), the shirts (including the one in the first pic – thanks SFL!) and various other items. Special shout out for my birthday cards: I got many this year and they were all extremely high quality ๐Ÿ™‚

With birthday cupcake in belly it’s soon time to prepare dinner – Chicken a la Zoffรซ, Tuscan style is what I’ll cook myself – then an evening of dueling in my new Yu-Gi-Oh game. A great end in other words to a great day!