|
|
phew, out of kitty jail in time to make an entry! hello byob and thank you for this opportunity to be elected god-emperor of this forum! for my talent I am going to argue that "faking craftiness" is a thing. I am not actually particularly crafty, but with time and a certain amount of research and stubbornness I can sometimes make things that vaguely resemble what I set out to create. example #1 is some ultralight hiking gear I sewed a few years back. I got materials and patterns from online shops and made a tent (really a sort of tarp-tent with a bug net enclosure and solid floor), a sleep quilt, and a backpack. this involved marking and cutting bolts of material and a surprisingly large amount of sewing, something I'd basically never done outside of a few miserable failures in middle school home ec class. tarp tent (with just a tiny corner of the quilt visible on the floor):  backpack:  a few things made this harder and therefore a bit more of an achievement (to me). one is that a lot of the material I was sewing was silnylon, which is extremely slippery and thus not the easiest thing to sew, especially with small seam allowances. the other is that the sewing machine I was using was pretty basic/cheap, and thus hardly a precision instrument. this took many weeks. I got to know the seam ripper quite well. the good news (for me) is that the stuff actually works. the tent tents and the quilt quilts, I have spent a few nights in them in the wilderness, and the backpack has been used on many hikes. All this stuff is ridiculously light and the tent and quilt pack down nice and small. my other example of faux-crafting is a halloween mask I made a while ago. I got it into my head that I wanted to dress up as the Horned King from the Lloyd Alexander Prydain books (anyone remember those? anyone?), who was painted like this on the cover of the edition I had as a wee lad:  to execute this concept, I bought a book called "how to make masks" by Jonni Good (which I recommend to anyone interested in such things) which discusses a versatile papier-mache technique using "shop towels" (basically very strong paper towels). I made a model of my face and head to build the mask on. I built up the features using modeling clay (and aluminum foil for the horns), then built the papier-mache mask by layering shop towels and plaster/glue over top of the clay. this took a good while, and painting the thing in a way that sort of satisfied me took a lot of coats and a bunch of trial and error.  it went over pretty well on halloween, although I hadn't reckoned on what a huge pita those horns would be. walking under trees and through doorways suddenly became a huge logistical challenge. in summation, I believe I have effectively demonstrated the talents I set out to illustrate: using bullshit justifications to tie together unrelated things, and waiting until the last minute to do stuff. good luck to all the other contestants, I look forward to your concession speeches!
|
#
¿
May 5, 2017 23:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 13:52 |
|
|
|
apologies in advance for the pasty skin, I have not yet laid down a base tan this year! bonus background crane! 
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
|
King of the Beach posted:looks like a great egret m8 nice! I hope I did not frighten it, sometimes people mistake being a fist for being angry 
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2017 20:37
|
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Manifisto: What interesting skin you have! I like it, but now Blue (Da Ba Dee) is in my head, and I resent that. 8.75/10 darn, my blatant pandering to the bird judge has gotten me nowhere!
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2017 01:05
|
|
|
|
relaxed, unclenched, ready for whatever the night may bring the other talent here is ridiculous, however you may all call me when this is over 
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2017 01:41
|
|
|
|
pig slut lisa posted:I'm going to be out of the country for three weeks so just place my trophy in my mailbox and I'll pick it up when I get back we're going to need proof that your destination lacked internet a doctor's note or some such
|
|
#
¿
May 26, 2017 12:34
|
|
|
|
esteemed judges, judgettes, and judgekin: it is indeed an honor to appear before you with my answer to the question, “what do you wish you had, how often, and why?” it seems to me that this is a question that calls for an opinion, and as we all know opinions are like butts: they’re entertaining and sometimes overly ample. so I will endeavor to keep this answer short, yet not so short as to lose points in the competition. long enough so the judges will see I have put some genuine effort into my answer, but succinct enough so you don’t get bored. this is not meant to be the kim kardashian of opinions, but rather the opinion corresponding to some celebrity who (whom?) you feel to have a butt that is well-proportioned, modest but not miserly, ample yet demure, playful yet articulate. oh and also somebody topical, I mean is kim kardashian even still a thing? hello??? anybody??? I suppose a thing I very much wish I had right now is a word that accurately sums up how I feel about the judges in this competition. I want to convey great respect, but without obsequiousness. I want to give the impression that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to your posts and contributions to byob and/or the subforums where you post often, and let you know that I feel you are actually one of the most important and valued members of the relevant communities, but I want to shy away from excessive presumptuousness in implying I am more active or admired in said circles than you believe me to be. I wish to implicitly confirm any and all positive beliefs you might have about me, subtly emphasizing your perceptiveness in arriving at such impressions, while gently correcting in a nonconfrontational manner any negative impressions you might feel in connection with me or the manifisto posting brand. how often do I wish I had such a word? approximately as often as you think I should wish that, but slightly less or more often—just enough of a difference to confirm that I think for myself and am not mindlessly parroting* your own thoughts and beliefs (*no offense to parrots intended). this provides wiggle room for me to accept an occasional correction from you, underscoring my respect for your intelligence and judgment. why? hopefully this is obvious. the reason I hope this is obvious is it means you have an idea of what you think the right answer to be, which I will then seek to reassure you is the view that I also hold. however, should you not find the reason to be obvious, I would like to congratulate you on being a discerning thinker and someone who does not rush to premature conclusions about complex questions. that’s one of your key virtues, unless you feel it’s one of your less promiment virtues in which case you are almost certainly right about that—you generally are. in sum, thank you again for asking such a thoughtful and penetrating question. it’s just one of the many reasons that I value your [POSIMERITORIFFICNONASSKISSISHNESS? NOTE TO SELF: LOCATE BETTER WORD BEFORE SUBMITTING FINAL ANSWER TO JUDGES].
|
|
#
¿
May 30, 2017 15:17
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 2, 2024 13:52 |
|
|
|
congratulations Al, the mxiest of mxs! it was a lot of fun, people put a lot of creativity into their responses and it was a very enjoyable read. and yes, thank you judges and cda!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2017 01:49
|
|