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Rain Of Frogs

Monday, August 16th, 2021

I sent Bernard fifty frog postcards at the same time!

I started by numbering them all. The cards were, of course, unique:

I then hand-addressed and stamped all fifty:

At first I was unsure what to write on each of them, but a quick amazon search gave a handy alternate solution:

The (exactly fifty!) frog stickers were then applied, and I wrote the lyrics to Rainbow Connection across all fifty cards:

This took some time as you may imagine, and the cost was about $40 for the cards, stamps and stickers. Given Bernard only paid $20, he got quite a deal.

“Paid?”, you ask? This was part of a deal i offered him: 50 frogs for $20. I never mentioned it was postcards (or indeed any details at all), but he gladly accepted regardless 🙂

I sent them all on the same day from a variety of post offices and mailboxes. Four days later he received 43 in the mail, and I expect the remaining 7 will arrive today. I hear they were a hit with him and Lakshmi. Overall I deem Operation Rain of Frogs to be a grand success!

I’ve still got a few frogs – and many toads – left. If you want one, indicate as much in the comments!

Posted in Animals, Art, Blog, Family, Miscellaneous, Postcards, Stamps | 2 Comments »

Portrait Contest: Halftime

Friday, June 25th, 2021

Bernard and I are having another contest, and this time it’s an art contest! To be specific: portraits. We’re each creating portraits and they are judged by the same five judges as last years postcard contest. While we’re sending these to each other on postcards, the cards themselves have no role in the judging this time.

The rules were simple: we would alternate choosing the subjects week by week, and create neck up portraits in any medium or style. The judges decision would be final.

That was five weeks ago, and we’re now halfway through. Let’s review the results so far!

Elvis Presley

I started choosing subjects with The King and right out of the gate Bernard ignored the ‘neck up’ rule with his ‘portrait’ (on the left)! The judges gave it to him 4-1, but since comments were as blatant as “Wins because of the pose” and “Wins only because of the guitar” I felt the contest had derailed almost immediately. Nonetheless the judges decision was final and Bernard took the early lead.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The best subjects are ones with many different looks, and you can see from my watercolour (on the left) and Bernard’s pencil sketch that Arnie fits the bill! The judges were torn on this one, and one even declared a tie, but ultimately Conan defeated The Terminator and I won 3.5 – 1.5. Judges comments included “Conan is too slick” and “Terminator doesn’t have enough color”.

Cleopatra

Perhaps I chose Cleo since I expected an easy win, but it’s certain I wasn’t prepared for the magnus opus created by Bernard (on the right). KLS joked that mine (on the left) was very masculine, but even had I demonstrated a better grasp of facial anatomy I daresay Bernard would still have got – as he deserved – the 5-0 win. Incidentally while the photos don’t show it well, both of these feature metallic inks! Judges comments included “The detail is extraordinary!”

Bruce Lee

Bernard chose Bruce Lee, perhaps because he had an image in mind? But Cleo had lit a bonfire under me and there was no way I was handing him another win, so I started taking things seriously. My portrait (on the right) swept all judges for a decisive 5-0 win. Comments included “I love the eyes” and “Excellent use of shading“.

Steve Irwin

We agreed to let Kristin and Lakshmi choose a subject each, and KLS was first up with her choice of the crocodile hunter himself! This was a difficulty subject since he’s so known for holding animals that it was hard to produce a neck-up image that conveyed his essence well. I took a bold approach with the stencil art on the left, and Bernard… well he chose to ignore the rules again. Once again the judges overlooked this infraction and gave him the 5-0 win, even commenting (as one did) that he won “even though it isn’t a portrait”. As for my image, I expect this is not a contest that will reward a novel approach and will return to more conventional styles ahead!

So halfway though, Bernard is up 3-2. Since two of his wins were (arguably) due to images that flaunted the rules the neck-up rule has now been abandoned.

Five more subjects to come, and it’s still anyone’s game! Who will we draw, and who will win? Find out in five weeks!

Posted in Art, Blog, Family, Postcards | Comments Closed

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 🙂

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 🙂

Posted in Miscellaneous, Postcards, Stamps | Comments Closed

2020 in Postcards

Monday, December 28th, 2020

We all know what didn’t happen this year: travel. And no travel (usually) means no postcards. But as you may know I found ways around that, and this past year ended up being a strong one on the postcard front!

When I visited Australia/Japan late last year and early this year I sent Kristin about 50 (yes fifty) postcards, four of which are shown above. As usual these are mostly amusing travelogues and I’m already thankful I did them since they contain slice-of-life memories that have already faded! Here’s an example of what I wrote on one from Japan:

Of course the last card from Japan (sent on January 20) was the last card I sent in 2020 while I was actually on holiday somewhere.

Then a friend (thanks JK!) made me some postcards for my birthday! This was perhaps a better gift even than she realized, because immediately I decided to use the same service (moo.com) to start making my own.

And I’ve made hundreds! Most of you have received some in the mail, and a few of you are receiving them weekly! This is in part due to covid, and in part due to me enjoying sending postcards. I hope you are enjoying receiving them.

Happily I’ve been receiving cards as well, and the above is a selection. Even if none of you are traveling either, you’re still sending me cards which is great. Every time I find one in my letterbox I smile 🙂

And then there’s postcrossing as well. I only check my PO Box every few weeks but every time I do there’s a pile of cards in there and I’m very close to receiving my 300th card! Covid is still slowing the mail for many countries, but even if delayed the cards eventually arrive and I haven’t had a single one ‘lost’ during 2020. Understandably the vast majority of cards contain comments about covid, and I can assure you people all over the world are hoping we get through this soon.

My latest idea was to purchase some ‘vintage’ US Stamps (some examples above) to use on postcards, and I’m just about to start doing that. Even though US stamps are good forever I’m still going to test this before sending a bunch of cards, but I’m optimistic you can look forward to cards with 30+ year old stamps on them soon…

Of course I hope 2021 brings travel back, and I can once again go somewhere and send you tacky tourist postcards. But even if that can’t happen I’ve got enough cards to keep me going for a good long while, and enough ideas to keep them fresh. Watch your mailboxes!

Posted in Art, Postcards, Stamps | Comments Closed

Postcard Contest: The Results!

Wednesday, November 11th, 2020

The postcard contest is over! All cards have been mail, received and judged. It’s time for the final score.

To revise, at halftime the score was even-stevens, and the contest had been a nail-biter with close calls from the inscrutable judges.

I had mentioned at that point the existence of a mysterious fourth rule which hadn’t come into play and now it’s time to reveal what that was:

4) Each competitor has 2 points in total they can wager on cards. If they win that card, the points are added to their total score.

As of halftime neither of us had wagered any of our points which is why I didn’t mention it. But the points entered the contest in the last four cards: read on to see what effect they had!

Category 5: Horror

I chose this category, and when it came time to select an imagine regretted it since it proved to be a difficult one. I actually ended up making two cards and chose mine – on the left – at the last moment.

I chose well it seems, since the judges awarded me the win 3-2. The choice seemed difficult since some found the skeleton child unpleasant… but wasn’t that the point?

You’ll also note that here Bernard plays for the judges with his card by putting himself in the photo! As if the judges would fall for such an obvious gimmick…

Category 6: Lizard

This category was Bernard’s choice, possibly because he had his picture (the top one) in mind. I was so confident of my lovely chameleon I wagered one of my points on it.

Bernard won 3-2! My point was lost like tears in rain, and once again the overall score was tied! The judges that selected a Bernard’s card gave no comments on their choice, so I don’t know why his was chosen.

At this point KLS made an observation: Did the judges understand they were voting for postcards and not just photos? It was immaterial since judges decision was final, but I made that (slightly) clearer to them in the final two categories.

Category 7: Rain

This was Lakshmi’s category! Bernard’s card used a photo he took himself from inside a train in New Zealand, and mine was one of several I printed showing the Tokyo neon jungle on a rainy night.

Bernard won 5-0!!! This was the only blowout in the contest, and since not one judge gave any real comment I can’t say for sure why his was chosen unanimously.

I’ll attribute it to none of them having visited Tokyo on a rainy night 🙂

So the overall contest score is 4-3 Bernard’s way with one card left. If you’re keeping track you’ll know I have one point left to wager, and he has two. If I win the last category I’ll be the overall winner with 5-4; if he wins it it’ll be his rout at 7-3. It all came down to the very last card…

Category 8: Sculpture

The final category was chosen by Kristin, and it was a good one. Bernard’s card was the top (showing civic fountain in Newcastle) and mine the bottom showing a (real) photo of a moai against the stars.

Had I been a judge I would have said this was the most difficult pair to judge since they’re both good, and based on the comments this was indeed the case since a few judges took longest on this final card.

And in the end… my card won 3-2. As one judge said: Gotta be the moai.

So with my final point wagered the overall contest score was 5-4 with me as the winner. I’ll accept this triumphant victory with the humility I am known for!

Thanks to the judges. Thanks to Bernard for strong competition and thanks to Lakshmi and Kristin for the guest categories. This was a lot of fun to do and I already have some ideas for the next time we do it (such as have each judge pick a category) which I’m certain will happen before too long 🙂

Posted in Art, Family, Postcards | 1 Comment »

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